


i'll toss and turn (morphing to something new)

by voltron_is_mine_now



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Multi, Road Trip, Sickfic, lots of bonding, shiro the tired parent: I will TURN THIS FUCKING LION AROUND SO HELP ME, slight angst, space, way too much klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 13:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19063510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltron_is_mine_now/pseuds/voltron_is_mine_now
Summary: When Keith hits call, a jerk goes through his stomach. He pushes it away, though, and stares at the red light blinking, blinking, blinking. For a moment, he thinks Lance might not take the call, because the red light keeps blinking, and the squirming in his stomach grows and grows.Lance might not take the call. It might even be easier that way.Lance takes the call.⸻⸻⸻⸻Something happens, and Keith doesn't quite know who he is anymore. But Lance will tell him. Of course he will.





	i'll toss and turn (morphing to something new)

**Author's Note:**

> This is from my rlly old account (like six months old lol) Sarcastic_Green_Paladin, which I took down  
> Just in case you saw this and wondered if I was stealing  
> Edit: I was told this was copy/pasted twice, so I fixed it! enjoy

When Keith hits call, a jerk goes through his stomach. He pushes it away, though, and stares at the red light blinking, blinking, blinking. For a moment, he thinks Lance might not take the call, because the red light keeps blinking, and the squirming in his stomach grows and grows.

Lance might not take the call. It might even be easier that way.

Lance takes the call. His face fills the screen of the black lion, staring at Keith. Keith’s stomach plummets. This is a terrible plan. His mind fills with ideas—say he’d accidentally called, pretend Shiro needs him, fake a heart attack. Anything would be better than facing Lance.

He shoves down that thought process and clears his throat. “Hey, Lance,” he says, glad his voice is normal and doesn’t resemble the horrifying(ly high) voice of Chuck E. Cheese on the commercial he’d once seen. At age nine. It should have been rated  _R._

“Hi, Mullet,” Lance says. There’s a bit of lingering sadness in his eyes that Keith notices. He notices everything about Lance—the color cast over his face by the red lion, the tiny freckles on his nose, the thin crease between his eyebrows as he stares at Keith. He’s jolted out of his thoughts when Lance asks, “What’d you call me for?”

Keith blinks, and his face colors. “I—actually called to apologize. You know, earlier, with _Garfle Warfle Snik_ —” He pauses, trying to think of what he should say. “I said—that the reason I chose you was because I didn’t want to be stuck with you for eternity.”

Lance nods. “Yeah.” He gives a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes, too crooked to be a real smile, and something in Keith’s stomach plummets. “It’s fine, though, buddy, I get it. I wouldn’t want to be stuck with me for that long either.”

“No,” Keith protests. “It’s not—I didn’t mean it. I actually just—panicked. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I blurted the first thing I thought of. But I didn’t mean it, and I’m really sorry.” His face reddens.

Lance is staring at him, with that stare that makes Keith think he can see exactly what Keith’s thinking, what’s going on in his mind. He looks sad, staring at him through the screen. “It’s fine, dude,” he says, though his voice is laced with a bitterness that Keith knows he’s trying to hide. It’s surprising, that he knows Lance this well, even after spending two years away, but he _knows_ him, knows the bare essence of the person on the screen in front of him.

Keith continues, because he’s a piece of shit who doesn’t know when to shut up. “I think you’re really smart, and important, and the team really needs you. You bring people together, Lance. You brought us together to find Voltron, and you bring us together now. _That’s_ why I chose you.”

Lance looks surprised—bewildered, even. He opens his mouth, then closes it, blinking at Keith. Is it just Keith, or is his face curiously red?

It’s just Keith. It has to be just Keith, because the red lion glows scarlet and Keith’s mind wanders and there’s no way in hell anything else could be causing the red tint over Lance’s entire face. Keith’s face is fiery red, and he can feel the blush creeping up his neck. He grabs the back of it in an attempt to hide it. “Erm. Yeah. I didn’t pick you just for my benefit, Lance. Sorry again. And for when I got back.”

Lance’s eyes widen, and he looks confusedly at Keith. Keith can see Kaltenecker behind him, but no one else. He has Krolia and Shiro in here, but he’s talking in a hushed voice and they’re occupied with a conversation, so he doesn’t think they can hear him. “Why?” Lance asks. “You didn’t do anything when you got back.”

Keith shifts uncomfortably. “You know.” He waves his hand. “When I came back and I said I didn’t have time for—whatever. But—” He pauses, trying to formulate words that make sense. “I know we were under a lot of stress, but it was still shitty of me, and I’m sorry. I haven’t been treating you the best lately.”

Lance blinks rapidly, and oh shit is he crying, why is he crying, why does Keith always fuck things up—

Lance drags a forearm across his eyes, sniffling. “Thanks, Keith,” he says, and Keith’s stomach gives a little twist at how _happy_ he sounds, bright and beaming. “I really needed to hear that.”

“You’re welcome,” Keith says, staring anywhere but Lance’s face. “Um. Krolia just called me.”

Did she actually call him? No. The lamest excuse in the universe? Yes. Necessary? Another yes.

Lance blinks at Keith, then seems to realize what Keith is doing. He cracks a grin, bright and full-bodied, and his brown eyes shine. They remind Keith, ridiculously, of his dad’s eyes—excited, full of humor and strength. “Okay,” Lance says, humoring him. “Thanks, for, y’know, telling me.”

“I needed to tell you,” Keith says. He feels his face go red again. “Erm. So. Bye.”

“Bye!” Lance calls. He gives an awkward half-wave before hitting the _end call_ button. His face flickers and then disappears, the screen of the black lion once again covered in nothing but stars.

Keith slumps back in his chair. “Uuuugggghhh,” he groans, drawing out the single syllable. “I am a fucking gay disaster.”

Krolia comes out from the back and pats his head sympathetically. “You did fine. Besides,” she adds, with a shit-eating grin, “I’m sure he believed your excuse.”

Shiro snorts from the back. “Don’t worry, Keith,” he says. “Gay disasters flock together. We can both be disasters.”

“At least you’re moderately functional,” Keith groans. “I’m just over here like an impulsive piece of shit.”

“Language,” Krolia chastises, ruffling his hair. He scowls and smacks at her hand, and she laughs. “Don’t worry,” Krolia tells him. “It’ll work out in the end.”

“No, it won’t,” Keith mutters. “I’ll just be a disaster until I die. The end.”

“Nah,” Shiro calls. “I don’t think you’re going to die. You’ll just be a disaster forever.”

“Why aren’t you like this with everyone else?” Keith groans, flopping backwards again.

“Because the others aren’t my sibling, so I’m not legally obligated to tease them about their crushes.”

Keith flops backward again as Shiro’s laughter echoes in his ears.

⸻⸻⸻⸻

“So,” Shiro prompts. He’s sitting cross-legged on a sleeping bag, wearing the pajamas of the black lion and looking curious. “What did I miss? I have all of the clone’s memories, but I’d like to hear it from you guys.”

They’re sitting in a clearing, surrounded by insanely tall trees. The lions are parked separately on this forest-covered planet, because they haven’t managed to find a space big enough for all of them _and_ five gigantic alien spaceships. Keith sits next to Krolia and Shiro on a sleeping bag, Pidge, Hunk, and Lance crowded together on another, and Romelle, Allura, and Coran make up the last group.

Hunk pipes up, looking excited. “Whoa, right, you missed so much!” His expression takes on an embarrassed look. “Do you remember the Voltron Show?”

Shiro suddenly snorts, then doubles over laughing, clutching his stomach. “Oh. Oh my _god_. We need to show Keith.”

Keith blinks. “What’s the Voltron Show?”

Pidge groans. “Only Coran’s brain getting infected with some weird bug that he got from an alien in a hospital and nearly killing us all.”

Lance laughs at the look on Keith’s face. “Chill, dude. _I_ liked my role.”

“We did it to improve moral for the Coalition and inspired others to join us in the fight against the Galra,” Allura says. “I played you. It was not a pleasant role.” Her face reddens, and she hastily says, “Not that you aren’t a lovely person! I just wish I could have played myself.”

Keith isn’t sure whether to be amused or offended, so he settles for bewildered. “I think I should watch it,” he suggests.

Coran grins. “I, personally, believe it was a learning experience!” he exclaims, scrambling around to grab materials.

“Yeah, a learning experience on why not to do drugs,” Pidge mutters under her breath, and Hunk snorts into his hand.

Coran sets up the holo-projector and plugs in the alien equivalent of a USB, and they watch the image flicker up, taking over the space. Noise booms from the speakers. Keith watches, snickering.

“Shiro the hero, huh?” he asks, elbowing Shiro.

Shiro wrinkles his nose at him. “That wasn’t me,” he says. “I have better fashion taste than the clone.”

“True,” Lance chimes in, looking away from the show. To Keith, he says, “You should see this next part.”

“He looked… interesting,” Allura says, smirking. Lance sputters, and Keith turns to the holograph and—

—fucking chokes—

—because Lance is there—

—and Keith can’t fucking _handle_ it, Lance is cast in a pink glow and at first glance you might think he was Allura but no, Lance is there, grinning his signature flirty grin as he seemingly effortlessly does all this aerial gymnastics.

Keith doubles in half, choking on his own spit. Krolia pats his back, though she has that _I-think-I’m-being-subtle-but-I’m-really-not_ look on her face, as though she knows exactly why he’s choking on his own saliva. Keith can hear Black laughing at him in the back of his mind, Black and Red, and he cusses them out—in his head, because he can’t actually breathe.

Keith holds his breath and waits for the coughing to stop. He sucks in a deep breath and hacks up a few more coughs before finally deeming his lung pieces of shit and continuing with life. Krolia’s hand finally stops smacking at Keith’s back in (bad) attempts to clear his lungs.

“Whoa, Mullet,” Lance says, leaning over and looking at him with concerned eyes and a smug smirk. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were attracted to me.”

Keith really, _really_ hopes his blush isn’t that obvious. “In your dreams,” he says. His voice is slightly rough from all the coughing, but to his relief, it’s not any different.

“More like nightmares,” Lance says, and Keith punches him in the shoulder, grinning. “Ow!” Lance protests, clutching his shoulder dramatically. “Rude! Did you lift weights on the space whale or something?”

Keith had told them all what he’d done for the—two years for him, months for them—that he’d been gone. They’d all been in various stages of disbelief (“Wait,” Hunk had said, “you found a _space whale_ that created its own _atmosphere_ and _ecosystem?_ ” and then launched into some scientific babble with Pidge) but had slowly come around to the idea.

Hunk, Pidge, Shiro, and Allura are all giving him the less-than-subtle look, along with the space mice and potentially Kaltenecker, but he pointedly ignores them. “Can we watch the rest of it?” he asks, looking toward the hologram, which Coran had paused when Keith had first started choking.

Keith manages to avoid asphyxiation by a narrow margin, because there are way more eye candy shots of Lance than there should be in an official show. He manages to keep a straight face, though, and when it’s over, he turns to Coran and says, with a straight face, “I cannot fucking believe you created this.”

Coran twiddles his mustache. “Isn’t it great?”

Keith makes a very awkward face. “Um—yeah! Really…” He pauses. “Creative.

There’s a pause, in which Lance snickers at the expression on his face, and then Coran is sobbing and tackling him in a hug. “It’s good to have you back, number three,” he says, tears streaming dramatically down his face as he squeezes Keith.  
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” comes Lance’s indignant voice. Keith turns to him, glad to have an excuse to stop being suffocated by Coran, and finds him holding up his index finger, face screwed up in a disgruntled expression. “Number _three?_ ”

“Well, he’s taller than you now, isn’t he?” Coran says, blinking innocently and owlishly at Lance.

Lance, who says, “Oh, no. No way. Keith is _not_ taller than me. This is not happening.” He scrambles up. “Get up, Keith, we are proving this for once and for all.”

Keith confusedly stands up and, on Lance’s command, stands back-to-back with him. Which, in retrospect, is a very bad idea, because Lance is warm and tall and thin and it’s very awkward to stand back-to-back with him when Keith is five hundred percent sure Lance has no idea the extent of his feelings toward him, but he’s doing it anyway, because—

Because—

“Coran!” Lance calls, interrupting Keith’s mental tirade against the warm feeling in his chest. “Who’s taller?”

Coran stands up and squints, then brushes his hand against the top of Keith’s head. “Keith is!” he cries, looking triumphant.

Lance sputters. He reminds Keith of an owl—eyes wide, mouth open indignantly. “I—he’s not—not— _no!_ ”

Keith snickers, despite himself. It’s just a combination of Lance’s expression and the others’ giggles and Coran’s innocently curious appearance. He laughs, and Lance pokes his nose with a finger, still squinting at him. Keith blinks, going cross-eyed momentarily.

“ _This is not over,_ ” Lance says, emphasizing each word with another poke of Keith’s nose. “I _will_ grow taller than you. I will do it through sheer willpower.”

Keith snorts, because of the expression on Lance’s face and because it should be irritating, should make fire flood his veins, but it’s just—friendly—full of happiness and the joking tone that Keith has learned means Lance doesn’t mean whatever he’s saying.

“All right, guys, it’s about time for bed,” Shiro calls.

Coran, Pidge, Hunk, and Romelle protest, but eventually give in. Keith stares at the line of sleeping bags and feels his face color. He swears under his breath. “Shiro!” he hisses. The other paladins are starting to look at him curiously, so he switches to morse code, tapping frantically on Shiro’s shoulder. _Switch with me._

“Why?” Shiro mumbles. He rolls over onto his side, snuggling into his pillow and pushing himself further into his sleeping bag. “Why are we talking in morse code?”

Keith continues frantically tapping. _Because I’m having a gay crisis, Shiro, stop laughing and help me._

Shiro does not stop laughing. With one last chuckle, he mutters “No,” and rolls over. Conversation finished.

Keith groans and wriggles into his sleeping bag. He puts his head on the pillow and purposely faces Shiro, not letting himself look at Lance, who’s making himself comfortable. There’s the sound of something punching a pillow from behind him.

Cosmo wanders over to Keith, then flops on top of Shiro, who goes “oof” and reaches out his hand to brush over Cosmo’s fur. Cosmo gives a wolf grumble, stands up, turns round and round at least thirty times as Shiro complains. Then he flops back down, giving a rumble of satisfaction.

They recite their “Good night”s, Coran blows out the lantern, and they’re plunged into darkness. Keith pointedly stares at Shiro’s sleeping form for a few minutes, listening to Shiro snore—the dude snores like a fucking lawnmower—until he hears a voice—Lance’s voice, whispering, “Hey, Keith.”

Keith cranes his neck to look at Lance, which is a mistake. The moonlight from the planet’s nine visible moons dapples his brown skin and reflects in his brown eyes, and Keith’s heart does a Dutch jig routine. “What?” he whispers.

“Do you wanna talk?” Lance asks, his voice hushed. “Like a sleepover?”

Keith is about to say no and stop looking at Lance like—like _that_ —like he’s almost perfect, all his imperfections made beautiful by the silvery moonlight and darkness behind his silhouette. But then he remembers—remembers Lance’s somber look at Shiro’s unconscious form, Lance staring off into the distance instead of chattering excitedly with Hunk, Lance training relentlessly.

“Sure,” Keith whispers, turning over to face Lance. His heart has gone from Dutch jig to Russian polka, but he pointedly ignores it.

They talk for a while, about anything and everything—Coran’s far-fetched stories, Hunk’s latest project, Allura’s alchemical powers.

(“But wouldn’t it be chemistry?” Keith argues. “Alchemy is the process of turning things to gold.”)

(“But alchemy sounds so much cooler,” Lance whines, and Keith gives up)

Eventually, Lance says, “Did you know I have a sword now?”

Keith sputters and turns his head to look at Lance so fast he almost gets whiplash. “ _What?_ You have a _sword_?”

Lance wrinkles his nose jokingly at him. “Yeah, me. It’s an Altean broadsword. Allura told me her father used it.”

“That’s not—you’re joking,” Keith says. Mostly because he believes Lance, but he doesn’t want to believe it, because his supposed “gay crisis” will definitely not be helped by Lance with a fucking _broadsword_.

Lance’s tone changes, more playfully offended, but he still grins at Keith, so Keith knows he’s not actually mad. “I’m not joking!” His voice is more sly now as he continues. “Y’know, I was gonna give you a gift, but you don’t deserve it, since you didn’t believe me.”

Keith blinks. “I don’t—what—I didn’t mean it that way!” he exclaims in a hiss. “I was just surprised. Did you really—get me a gift?”

Lance looks at him, nose wrinkled, for a moment, and seems to deem him worthy. “Uh-huh,” Lance says, rummaging underneath his pillow. “I noticed that alien pen you chewed until—honestly, Keith, it was _disgusting_ —”

Keith flushes. He hadn’t thought anyone had noticed.

“—but anyway, I saw this in the space mall and since I was gonna buy a bunch of stims for Pidge and me, I grabbed you one too.” He pulls out a box and opens it, pulls out a necklace. It’s just a cord resembling leather, and dangling off of it is—

—Keith’s breath catches—

—a circular, red, chewy pendant.

It’s in all different shades of red, marbled and swirling. Lance hands it to Keith. When Keith rubs his thumb over the pendant, it has grooves, barely noticeable but soothing. Keith’s gaze darts up to meet Lance’s eyes, and he finds himself trapped—eyes caught in the nearly endless dark brown.

“Is this—did you really get this for me?” Keith whispers, jerking his gaze from Lance’s eyes and down to the pendant in his left palm.

“Duh,” Lance says, grinning. His voice softens. “I noticed you didn’t really have any stims, and any you did have were probably destroyed with the castleship, so I grabbed one when I went shopping with Coran. Pidge and I are kind of frequent shoppers at the place that sells the stims.”

Keith loops the necklace over his head and fiddles with the pendant when he talks. “Thanks,” he mutters, smiling softly. “Stims weren’t really encouraged at the Blade.”

“What?” Lance says, looking confused and—angry? “Seriously? You’d think they’d like that stuff.”

“Yes, the Blade,” Keith says dryly. “The organization famously known for healthy coping mechanisms.”

Lance snorts, then sobers. “But seriously,” he says, capturing Keith’s gaze yet again. Keith feels trapped and like he’d never want to be anywhere else all at once. “If you need any more stims, just come to Pidge or me, ‘kay? I’ve got tons.”

Keith looks at him—truly looks at Lance, at the lingering sadness in his eyes slowly fading but still there, ever-present. He takes in the single dimple on Lance’s left cheek, the freckles that pepper his nose, the way the moonlight seems to mingle with the blue and silver flecks in his irises.

A surge of warmth fills his chest, like when Red used to burst into his mind but tenfold. Keith’s soft smile grows and grows and grows, until he’s beaming at Lance, who grins back.

“Okay,” he says. “Just—if you ever want to talk about anything, I’m here, okay?”

Lance blinks, and then he’s surging forward in his sleeping back, tackling Keith in a hug. They fall, both on their sides, cocooned in their sleeping bags. For a moment Keith is too surprised to do anything but fall back as Lance embraces him, but then he hugs back, arms snaking around Lance’s waist as he squeezes. “I’m glad you’re back,” Lance murmurs, his face tucked into Keith’s shoulder.

“Me too,” Keith whispers, then lets Lance go. Lance pushes himself up on his palms, hovering over Keith. Then he wriggles back to his place in the sleeping bag, flops his head on the pillow, a soft smile on his face.

They talk for a while longer, about anything and everything—Keith’s time on the space whale (Keith tells Lance about the time Cosmo had teleported onto his back when he’s been standing on the edge of the canyon and he’d nearly fallen to his death), Lance’s new sword (“Once I shot this training bot and then my bayard just went _whoooom_ and turned into a sword and I sliced the other one in half,” Lance tells his excitedly), how excited Pidge and Hunk are to meet up with Matt in a movement.

Eventually, Keith starts to feel tired, in that halfway point between sleep and wakefulness. He blinks heavy eyelids and tired eyes, opens his mouth and yawns. “We should go to sleep,” Keith whispers.

“What—why?” Lance whispers, then feels a fierce yawn overtake his face. Through it, he mumbles, “I’m not tired.”

“Mm-hmm,” Keith says dryly. “That’s why you’re”—he yawns—“yawning every sentence.”

They argue for a while longer, Keith citing reasons such as being tired and needing to pilot tomorrow, until Lance finally concedes, muttering “ _Fine._ ” Lance flops down dramatically on his pillow and shuts his eyes.

(Keith stares)

(Stares and stares and stares)

(He’s tired, his eyes are tired, his body is tired, his mind is tired)

(But still he watches, watches the way silvery moonlight dapples Lance’s skin, watches the way Lance’s open mouth drools just slightly, in an endearing way)

(Keith watches, he watches fiercely)

(And then)

(And then)

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Keith jolts upright in his sleeping bag as an alarm blares.

“We have a distress call!” Coran yells, from where he’s rapidly rolling up his sleeping bag. “Get ready, we have to go! It’s in a neighboring planet called Xentaria. They’re being attacked—go, go, go!”

Keith is moving before he really notices he’s moving. He wriggles out of his sleeping bag, shoves it into a ball and grabs his pillow too, and shakes Shiro awake. Shiro blinks his eyes open and jolts upright, and Keith turns to wake Lance too, but he’s already up, sprinting to the red lion.

Everyone’s running to the lions, now, darting through the tiny path in the forest that they’d found. Keith, in the back of his mind, is suddenly glad they’d brought the bare minimum of supplies for the camping; he’s carrying an armful of stuff as is.

Keith sprints up the ramp to the black lion, shoving his stuff into a cabinet and sitting in the pilot’s chair. Cosmo streaks up into Black too, soon followed by Shiro and Krolia. They all sit in the back, and Keith presses the comm button. Everyone’s tired faces flicker onto the screen in front of him. “Okay,” Keith says. “How do we get there, Coran?”

Coran’s face is, for once, completely serious. “I’ve downloaded the fastest possible route for you all,” he says. “You can access it with the white button. We should be able to get there in under ten doboshes.”

Everyone nods, Keith hits _end call_ and pulls back the controls, zooming up into the upper atmosphere. _Let’s go, Black,_ he urges, though he can’t suppress the surge of joy he get from truly piloting Black—because he _wants_ to, this time, not because it was some expectation from a wayward parents ( _cough cough_ Shiro). The first time he’d done it, actually bonded with Black, he’d flapped his hands for ten minutes afterward, bouncing on the balls of his feet and grinning.

He grins now, as Black says, _Of course go, save planets, be heroes._ Her voice is metallic and deep but not unpleasant—it’s actually really nice, vibrating deep in his chest. She has a hero complex—is that a thing? Something about how only a true hero should be able to pilot her, and so he should prove it. He thinks she does it to annoy him, although he’s not entirely sure. It’s hard to tell when Black’s being sarcastic.

Keith leads the charge with the lions, sets Black on the right path, and changes into his armor. It’s heavy, which is nice, but uncomfortable. He stretches, yawning, then sits in the pilot’s chair again. _How’s it going?_ Keith asks Black.

 _Three doboshes. You should wear black armor,_ Black says, changing the subject abruptly.

“What?” Keith asks out loud, blinking. He can feel her presence in her head laughing at him.

“What is it?” Krolia asks, from her seat on a cot in the back. “Did we get another distress call?”

“No,” Keith says. “Black just suggested I do something weird.”

 _Not weird,_ Black rumbles in his mind. _You pilot me. You wear black armor. Already have black bayard. Should match._

Keith looks down at his arms, at the red decals. _I… don’t know. Would the black armor fit me? It fit Shiro, so it would be big on me._

 _Altean clothing fancy science,_ Black says, with that smug tone that she gets whenever she’s telling Keith something he doesn’t know and she does. _Fits everyone._

“Wow,” Keith mutters aloud. “You really want me to wear black? I think I’d look weird.”

 _Always look weird, so not a problem,_ Black says, snickering in his head. It’s the deep grate of metal, pleasant, although her words are not.

“Hey!” Keith protests. “I do not look weird!”

Black begins listing the weird aspects of his appearance, chucking in his head. _Messy long hair, little freckles, funny nose, scrawny, pale, always red around Lance_ —

“Okay!” Keith blurts in his head. Krolia is starting to give him weird looks, so he switches to mental speaking. _I’ll wear black armor, but those are_ not _weird aspects of me._

 _Whatever you say,_ Black says, her voice amused. Then her tone changes—deeper, battle-ready, commanding. _We’re here! Let’s go!_

Keith jerks her upward and turns, staring through the windshield to face the Galra cruisers. There are so many of them, he can only watch several at once, but he activates Black’s jawblade and zooms forward, slicing several at once.

“There’s so many of them!” Lance yells through the comm. Keith can see the red lion open her maw and unleash a stream of lava, melting everything in her path.  
“We’ve got this!” Keith says, trying to sound encouraging. He’s not as good at motivational speeches as Shiro. “Just do what you’re good at. Try to see the world through your lion’s eyes!”

Following his own advice, Keith shuts his eyes for a moment. He feels Black’s presence in his mind, heavy and metallic, then lighter. He snaps his eyes open and grins. His vision is double—he sees through his own eyes, but he also sees through Black’s, sharper than any human’s vision could be.

“All right!” Keith yells. Everyone else is grinning too, so he assumes they’ve also succeeded. “Let’s do this!”

He gears up, sends a laser blast toward the huge Galra cruiser, and lets himself completely fall into the rush of battle, adrenaline flowing through his veins.

⸻⸻⸻⸻

It’s nearly sunset when they leave their lions—the sky streaked with purple and pink like an artist’s palette. Lance feels exhilarated—that kind of thrill he gets from not only defeating the Galra, but banishing them from the entire planet. Combined with the adrenaline from the battle still coursing through his veins, he’s not sure how he’ll sleep tonight.

It’s not the only thrill he gets—Keith is giving him a small but genuine smile, the kind he only gets when he’s truly happy and satisfied. His skin is shadowed in the dusk light, cast over with several tints of colors. Keith pats the black lion on the nose and then heads over to where the team has accumulated.

They’ve left Shiro, Coran, Krolia, Romelle, and the animals inside the various lions, promising them this would be quick. Just long enough to meet with the Xentarians, the native race of this planet—Xentaria. They’re remarkably human-like in stature, about five feet tall, with skin that’s generally a dark shade of green. They have better color vision than humans or Alteans—or Galra—and five eyes that are completely milky-white. Lance lets a shudder run through him at the sight of them peering toward the group of paladins.

“Come in,” says one of the natives. Their voice is comically high and squeaky, with a grating tone that simultaneously gets on Lance’s nerves and sets him on edge. “The monarch is waiting to discuss joining the Voltron Coalition.”

Lance’s helmet is still up in front of his face—the oxygen levels are too low in this atmosphere to breathe, so the paladins’ helmets have slid down to completely cover their faces. Light gleams off of the glass in front of it, and it’s all so—full—Lance’s senses are all completely occupied looking and smelling and touching and tasting and hearing the atmosphere—

He sucks in a breath and nods to the Xentarian. “Of course,” Lance says, grateful that his voice is steady despite his wavering thoughts. “Lead the way.”

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Pidge marvels at the decoration as she moves through the palace. It’s insanely fancy, the product of an incredibly vain ruler with too much time on their hands. Columns, pillars—are they synonymous? She isn’t sure—fancy carpeting, tapestries. This place has it all. Most of it, she can tell, has no function. Not like the Olkarians, who implant technology into every molecule of every wall they build.

Not that she isn’t impressed. It’s far too fancy not to let her gaze linger on the various decorations. And she isn’t blind to the gazes Lance and Keith send each other when the other isn’t looking—the idiots are too oblivious to realize what the rest of the team has known for the past phoeb. Stupid, lovesick glances, soft and sweet. Their fingers brush together when they walk. Pidge elbows Hunk, smirking, and nods in their direction.

Hunk snickers. Keith glances back, looking confused. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Pidge chirrups, lying through her teeth effortlessly. “Just an inside joke.”

Keith nods absentmindedly, then goes back to staring at the palace walls. Pidge and Hunk share a look, grinning.

The Xentarian leads them to a wide door, then gestures at the unfamiliar material of the opening. “Go ahead,” they say. “I am not permitted to go any further. The monarch waits to meet with you.”

The paladins walk inside, Keith pushing open the door. It looks heavy to Pidge, although that may be because she’s practically a noodle when it comes to physical strength. She slips through the opening after Keith. Lance, Hunk, and Allura follow.

Pidge turns to look at the room, and her jaw drops.

It’s fancy. Like, really, really fancy—the walls are brilliant violet, covered with tapestries and paintings in every color of the rainbow, and the floor is plush carpet that both of her feet are engulfed in. The ceiling has got to be thirty feet high, with light fixtures of an unfamiliar material dangling, catching light and practically throwing it off them.

Pidge finally manages to close her mouth, nudges Hunk to do the same. Only Allura has managed to keep a straight face, probably because she’s visited the most planets—she’s used to this kind of stuff. Lance is enthusiastically pointing stuff out to Keith, his voice reverberating through the comms in their helmets.

“Ahem.” Someone clears their throat, and the paladins snap to attention, facing them. It’s the monarch, their skin a deep green, their eyes luminous white. They’re sitting in a chair, and even from here, Pidge can tell that they’re under the four-foot mark—finally someone shorter than her.

The monarch clears their throat once more, and then begins talking. “Hello, paladins. We’ve taken the liberty to switch the room to your oxygen levels, which, fortunately, do not affect Xentarians. You may take your helmets off.” Their voice is deep and reverberates strangely through their helmets.

Pidge takes hers off, slips her glasses onto her nose. Hunk takes his off too, tucking it under his arm, and Lance does the same. Allura slides her helmet off her head, taking a moment to comb through her enormous bun. Keith lifts his off, his hair rumpled and sticking up in odd places.

The monarch stands up, knocking their chair back in their haste, and something gleams in their hand. “ _Galra,_ ” they breathe, eyes wide and seething with hate. They move faster than Pidge thought possible, plunging the shining thing into Keith’s arm, straight through his paladin armor.

Keith sucks in a breath, his eyes wide, and then falls—almost as if in slow motion.

Lance catches him, gently sets him down on the plush carpet of the room, then turns to the monarch, his eyes burning with fury. “ _What did you do?_ ’

“Galra,” the monarch repeats, pale eyes seething with anger, almost matching Lance’s.

( _If it was poison, it’s in our best interests to get him into the healing pod, or to Coran, or, or, or_ —a voice in Pidge’s head says frantically, terrified)

“He’s also the _black paladin,_ in case you haven’t noticed!” Lance snaps, dropping to his knees in front of Keith’s unconscious form. His voice is cold and almost detached—serious, in a way he should never sound, should never _have_ to sound. “I’ll ask one more time: What—did—you—do?”

The monarch sniffs. “The needle was poisoned. The poison is special—it only affects Galra DNA.” They say this like it’s a paragraph out of a textbook, like they haven’t just tried to _kill_ Keith—oh, no, now Pidge’s thoughts are darting in a dozen directions again—she sucks in a deep breath, lets it out in a long exhale. Listens to the awful monarch, who is still coldly speaking, avoiding Lance’s gaze. “He should die within a few vargas.”

Lance pales. Hunk and Allura have tears in their eyes. Pidge is frantically thinking. If this were code, she could just delete it, clear the program, start again from the beginning—a clear slate. But this isn’t code, and she’s terrified, and Keith is going to _die_ —

No. No, Keith is _not_ going to die, not while he still has a chance, has breaths and heartbeats and footsteps to live out. Pidge lifts her head to meet the monarch’s gaze, clenches her fists. “Tell us what the cure is, and we’ll leave calmly,” she says, through gritted teeth.

The monarch sniffs. “There is no cure,” they say, like it’s obvious, like Pidge’s heart hasn’t just plummeted out of her chest, like Hunk isn’t already sobbing. “All Galra deserve to die. They are no different.”

“Yes, they _are,_ ” Pidge says, her voice shaking. “Keith is—”

(Keith is brave, and strong, and fiery, and Lance and Hunk and Allura and Shiro and Coran and Krolia and Pidge will never never never be the same without him)

“Keith is the black paladin,” Pidge finally finishes, biting back the lump in her throat and the tears pricking in her eyes. “He is important to the universe. And to us. He is our _family_ , and he is nothing like you. He is strong, and warm, and bright, and he’s going to _live_ , no matter what asshat monarchs of strange planets say.”

The monarch is speechless. Finally, they begin to say, “You—you dare—”

Allura finally regains her voice, sniffling as she rubs at her eyes. Wetly but primly, she says, “The Voltron Coalition will _never_ ally with such biased, evil people as you. We will no longer be associating with Xentaria. Do not try to follow us.” She turns on her heel and begins to attempt to convince Lance that she should be the one to carry Keith, because she’s stronger.

(She’s stronger, but Lance is far more stubborn, and finally, as he scoops Keith up, Allura gives in, eyes lingering on Keith’s limp form as she turns to Hunk and hands him a handkerchief to wipe at his eyes)

Pidge turns to the monarch, who’s been struck dumb, their many eyes wide. She balls a fist, clenches it tight, then steps toward the monarch, shoving all of her (anger, sadness, desperation, terror) into one punch. Pidge drives her fist straight home to where a nose would be. The monarch falls, curled into a ball on the plush carpet. They look almost pitiable curled up there, as small as a child, but far more sinister. “That,” Pidge grits out through clenched teeth, “was for Keith.”

She turns on her heel and shoves the door open, beckoning everyone out of the too-bright room. Pidge rubs at her eyes, an ache in her chest.

(She’s sad, and angry, and fear still curls ugly in her chest, but she thinks Matt would be proud)

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Lance’s heart thuds awfully in his chest as he carries Keith, and it’s not from the physical exertion. He’s terrified, and when—when the monarch had said—

(Had said that Keith would die, Keith would be dead, and it had seemed so impossible, a world devoid of Keith, of flashing swords and rare but bright smiles and “Hey, Mullet”s)

But no, Keith will not die. Pidge had said so herself. Lance doesn’t know how she’d had it in herself to be so steady, to stand strong as a cliff crumbles beneath her feet. He still feels like he is falling—no, tumbling, down rough gravel and loose dirt, the flashes of sky he can catch an awful shade of gray.

As Lance accidentally jolts over a loose rock on his way back to the lions, Keith groans and stirs, tucking his face into Lance’s neck. He doesn’t move afterward, but all of Lance’s senses are heightened—he can feel the soft hair and smooth skin on his neck and smell strange alien shampoo. If he tilts his head down, he could bury his face in Keith’s dark head of hair and breathe in his scent and feel like everything’s okay again—

Lance stops that train of thought before it can pull out of You Have a Huge Fucking Crush Station. He focuses on moving as smoothly over the ground as he can, so as to make Keith as comfortable as possible. The lions are in view. Red sends a distressed roar into his mind, conveying the feelings Lance has been feeling ever since Keith froze and then dropped like a stone.

 _What happen?_ Red asks, a rumbly exclamation in his mind.

 _The monarch poisoned Keith with something,_ Lance tells Red, trying to keep his thoughts steady. _It only affects Galra DNA. We’ve got to help him before he—before he—_

(No, Lance can’t say it, still can’t envision a world when Keith is missing, dead, deceased, _gone_ )

 _I torch them,_ Red roars angrily. She feels so like Keith Lance would be tempted to laugh without the situation at hand. _Who I torch?_

 _Don’t torch anyone!_ Lance exclaims in his mind. He’s been moving all this time, feet shuffling over unfamiliar grass. _Pidge already punched the monarch in the face._ He tries to mentally convey an image of it, of Pidge standing coldly over the terrified monarch. Red gives a grumbly snort, then sobers.

 _Keith will be okay?_ she asks anxiously, and Lance feels like his heart is going to be torn out of his chest, it hurts so badly. _He feel pain, lots of pain. And scared. He scared, Lance._

Scratch that, Lance’s heart is going to break into tiny pieces and dissolve slowly and fill his arteries with acid and he’s going to _fall_ —

 _We’ll try,_ Lance promises, feeling the telltale prick of tears in the corner of his eyes. _We’ll do everything we can. Keith isn’t going to die, girl._

Red gives one more reassuring purr in his mind, then slowly disappears, traces of her fading but still present at the very back of his thoughts. Lance has arrived at the black lion by now, whose maw is open. Lance trudges up the ramp to her, crosses through her piloting area to the back, where Shiro and Krolia sit on cots.

At the sight of Keith, Shiro springs up, eyes wide. “What happened? Is he okay?”

Lance gives them the short version of the story, trying to keep his voice from shaking. At the end, Shiro is taking shuddering breaths, and Krolia’s normal purple shade of skin has gone pale. When she speaks, however, it’s even. “I know more about how Galra are made up than any of you. A healing pod won’t know what to do with this. Lay him down.”

Lance obeys without a second thought, setting Keith down as gently as possible on a cot in the back of the black lion. Krolia presses a hand to his forehead anxiously. “Will he be okay?” Lance asks.

“Get Coran,” Krolia orders. “He’ll be able to help.”

Coran shows up and sombers at the sight of Keith laying on the cot, face screwed up in obvious pain. “Oh, no,” he mutters, pulling out a tablet. He presses a few electrodes from it to Keith’s forehead, then taps several buttons.

The tablet beeps when it’s done scanning.

Coran sighs in relief. “He’s not going to die,” he says, and something loosens in Lance’s chest. Keith isn’t going to die, he’s going to live, he’s not going to disappear and leave a giant Keith-shaped hole in Lance’s universe—

Lance startles, just able to catch the second part of Coran’s speech. Coran continues, “but the poison seems to have activated his dormant Galra gene. There’s really no way I can say this easily—”

(Oh no, oh no, Lance doesn’t know what he’s going to say but it can’t be good, not with that tone, his heart plummets)

“—I’m afraid Keith’s turning Galra.”

(Lance’s heart soars, because this isn’t nearly as bad as he’s hoped, his lungs seems to expand and fill his chest with hope)

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Coran continues. “The best thing we can do is make him comfortable and hope the transformation doesn’t take too long. We should leave this planet.” His face contorts with fury for a moment. “Those aliens—they just—they’re—” He seems to be unable to put his thoughts into words, so he goes silent.

Krolia nods, puts a hand on Coran’s shoulder. “Thank you, Coran. You’ve done more than we could have hoped for. Is there anything else we can do for him?”

“We can make him comfortable,” Shiro interjects, “which means taking off this armor. I know from experience that it isn’t the most comfortable garment in the universe.” Shiro sits down on the cot beside Keith to begin doing just that, presses his fingers to the clasp, then frowns, makes a motion like he means to use his other hand—oh— _oh_ —

Lance puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, I can do it,” he says. Shiro nods, stands up, and Lance sits in his place, unclasping the armor and sliding it off of Keith.

When he gets to the left arm, he frowns. The iron spike is slender but long, a good five inches, and Lance doesn’t know if pulling it out will do more damage.

“We need Hunk,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. “He knows more about medical stuff than any of us do.”

He taps a button that activates his comm, speaks into a private line that he likes to imagine reaches all the way to Hunk, carrying his voice along feet and yards and miles and galaxies.

“Hey, Hunk,” Lance says, quietly. “We need to remove the spike from Keith’s arm. Could you give us some help?”

Hunk’s voice is steady. “Sure, buddy,” he says. “I’ll be right over. Get the medical supplies—some thick pads and bandages, and disinfectant.”

Lance obeys his orders. Hunk is walking up the maw of the black lion in record time. He frowns at the iron spike poking out from Keith’s left arm, reaches out a finger to prod along it. Finally, Hunk pulls out a tablet, takes a picture, and scrolls into a program.

“It didn’t sever anything major,” Hunk says, sounding relieved. “All we need to do—Lance, buddy, I need you to be brave, okay?”

(Lance’s stomach plummets, but he nods, clutching a thick pad in each hand)

“I’m gonna pull out the spike, and you need to clamp both pads on the entry area, and apply pressure,” Hunk orders. He sounds nothing like the anxious person he’d been when Keith had first been poisoned. “ _No matter what,_ don’t stop applying pressure.”

Lance gulps, but nods again. He’s not sure he can trust himself to speak right now. Hunk pulls on the Altean equivalent of latex gloves over the ones on his paladin suit, then takes hold of the spike and pulls.

It comes out cleanly. Keith cries out, face contorting in pain, but stays unconscious. Hunk undoes the clasp of his armor, pulls it off his arm, rips the black material of the bodysuit so his arm is no longer covered. “Now, Lance!” he cries, and Lance presses down both pads on Keith’s arm, holds them there, and squeezes his eyes shut tight, because he doesn’t think he can bear to see the pain on Keith’s face.

“Lance.” It’s Hunk’s voice, soft and soothing and warm. “It’s okay, buddy, you can stop putting pressure on the wound. I’m gonna disinfect it and wrap it. The worst is over.”

Lance blinks open his eyes, pulls the pads away from Keith’s arm. His stomach swirls when he sees that both of them are bright red and shining with blood.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Hunk reassures him. “There was a lot of blood, but now that we’ve got the object out, we can make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

Hunk wraps it with a clean white bandage, then departs after giving Lance a squeezing hug. Hunk gives the best hugs, and Lance feels something soften in his stomach. It’s not perfect, but it’s better.

At the end, Keith is left in nothing but the thick black bodysuit they wear underneath the armor. It’s remarkably similar to wetsuit material, Lance decides, lit up by the glowing blue decals. And Keith—Keith, despite having come back bigger and taller, is _scrawny._  Seriously scrawny.

Lance can see his ribs through the material—it highlight every curve of Keith’s body, including the ribs that _really should not be that prominent,_ dios _, Keith_. Lance remembers being trapped in the elevator with him, and Keith is still as hopelessly thin as he’d been back then. “Dude,” Lance whispers. He feels strangely embarrassed, despite the lack of people in the back of the black lion. “Do you even _eat?_ Honestly, you’re _so bony,_ I can literally count all of your ribs.”

Keith, to absolutely no one’s surprise, does not respond.

Keith’s face is still creased with pain, and Lance can—Lance can see—

(It’s purple, creeping up from underneath Keith’s collar, a beautiful and terrible shade)

Lance presses two fingers to where the purple spreads slowly, face pale. Keith seems to lean into the touch, his mouth opening slightly in an almost wistful expression.

Krolia walks over, too, brushes some hair from Keith’s forehead tenderly. She leans down and presses a soft kiss to his forehead, then says to Lance, “We need to leave this planet, but—Keith is incapacitated.” Her tone is strangely vulnerable. “Shiro’s been trying, but he hasn’t had any luck. Maybe you could attempt—” She trails off.

Lance nods and stands up, walks on unsteady footing to the cockpit of the black lion, where Shiro stands, a concentrated look on his face. He relaxes slightly when Lance walks in. “Oh, hey, Lance,” he says, and his voice is filled with relief. It’s warmer than the clone’s had been—Lance hadn’t realized until he’d come back what had been missing from the carbon copy of Shiro who’d wormed his way into their lives.

Lance walks over and presses two hands to Black’s control panel. _Hey, buddy_ , he tries, and he’s not sure if he imagining it, but he thinks he can feel a presence at the back of his mind, heavy and metallic. _I know I’m not Keith, but we really need to get out of here. He’s hurt, really badly, and I know you feel it. Can you help us out? Just find us a place to land and camp for the night._

Black roars in his mind, and Lance stumbles back a step—her presence is all there, heavy and dark and oddly reassuring. Her voice is deep, rumbling. _Keith is hurt,_ she says. _You need tend to him._

 _I know,_ Lance answers, trying to convey all his anguish and terror and fire that he feels over Keith. _Will you help?_

 _Of course,_ Black says, like it’s obvious. She roars, not in Lance’s head but aloud, and takes off. The lions follow her.

“Hey, guys,” Lance says through his comm. “You all in your lions?”

“Yeah,” Hunk answers. “Coran and Romelle are in the red lion, though, are you in there?”

“No,” Lance says, and he feels a warm feeling welling in his chest. “I talked to Black, and she’s gonna take us somewhere to camp for the night and help Keith out.” He gives them a short summary—Keith going Galra, Coran saying that it had been activated by the poison.

“That’s fascinating,” Pidge says. “So the poison that affected the gene also brought it into physical being?”

“Yeah,” Lance answers. “He’s in a lot of pain, though—I don’t think it’s a fun transformation.”

“We’ll all help him,” says Allura decisively, her voice reverberating through the comms. “Blue says to tell you hello.”

“Hi, Blue,” Lance says, and he feels a purr in the back of his mind, cool and smooth like water sliding over stones. He laughs. He’s sitting with his back to the side of Black’s piloting chair, facing the video comms on his screen. There’s nothing but empty space out in front, behind, and to the sides of them, so he’s talking to them until they find somewhere to land and camp out.

Allura yelps suddenly. A flash of blue-and-white fur shows up on the screen, and then Allura’s pushing herself up in the chair, laughing and scolding Cosmo insincerely.

(An idea flickers in Lance’s mind, bright and bursting, and he acts on it before he can think about it)

“Hey, Cosmo,” Lance calls. Cosmo turns his head, blue eyes full of curiosity, as Lance says, “C’mon. Can you teleport over here?”

Cosmo blinks, then dissolves in a flash of silver light. He reappears above and falls on Lance, who gives an “Oof,” and falls over under the weight of one _solid_ space wolf. “Hey, boy,” Lance says, patting his head. “Keith needs you right now, okay? Go to him.”

Cosmo bounds out of the cockpit of the black lion, into the storage space, where Shiro lays on a cot, snoring loudly, and Krolia on another, her expression guarded even in sleep. Lance follows Cosmo, wondering what he’s about to do.

(And maybe, maybe maybe maybe, he wants to curl up on one side of Keith, whose face is still creased, and put his arms around him, and watch his face relax into something softer, happier)

Cosmo bounds onto the cot Keith is on and curls up after turning around at least thirty times, snug against his side. The purple has taken over at least half of Keith’s face by now, and his human ears have started to meld with his head, furry purple ones poking out from his mop of black hair.

At the physical contact, Keith’s eyes slowly slide open. Lance is relieved to find that they’re still their normal shade of dark violet, albeit flecked with more gold than he remembers. “Lance?” Keith croaks, curling further into himself.

“Hey, buddy,” Lance says, and his voice is—soft—warmer than he’d intended it to be. He crosses the room, sits on the edge of the cot Keith is on. It’s really not meant to hold two people, let alone two people and a space wolf, but Lance doesn’t care about that right now.

“Hurts,” Keith mutters, leaning into his side. Lance’s chest aches with something desperate to break free at his obvious pain. Keith’s eyes suddenly widen, and he attempts to jolt away— _attempts_ is the key word, because Keith is apparently too weak to do much but fall back into Lance’s side.

“Whoa, take it easy,” Lance says, helping to push Keith away from him. “You remember much of what happened?”

“We went to meet the—the monarch,” Keith says. “And then—fancy palace. Really fancy. We went into a room—the ceiling was really white—and then we took off our helmets—and the monarch—”

“Yeah,” Lance says. He’s still sitting on the cot, and, strangely, he doesn’t feel the need to move away. “The monarch had this poison developed that only affected those with Galra DNA. When she saw that mark” —Lance watches Keith reach up and touch it, almost unconsciously— “she went crazy and stuck a five-inch iron spike into your arm tipped with that poison.”

Keith looks confused. “Then… why am I not dead?” he asks softly.

Lance nudges him. Cosmo grumbles in his sleep and shifts slightly. “Don’t sound so disappointed. You’re only half Galra. It didn’t affect you as much as it would affect, say, Krolia. But—it triggered the gene you have that’s Galra DNA. So now—you’re—”

“Galra,” mutters Keith. His fingers move up, floppy, like they aren’t attached right to his limbs, and probe at the ears that are now sticking out fully from his hair.

“Uh-huh,” Lance agrees.

Keith stares at the skin of his arm, which is purple, along with the rest of him by now. “I’ve—I’ve got purple skin. Is my hair purple too?”

“It’s turning purple,” Lance observes, peering at Keith. “Your eyes aren’t yellow, though, they’re just normal. You have fuzzy ears.”

Keith still appears to be in some state of disbelief. He stiffens suddenly, like he’s been shot with the freeze-ray of the blue lion, and hisses through gritted teeth.

“Pain?” Lance inquires, looking at Keith.

“Yeah,” Keith mutters. He moves to pet Cosmo as Lance watches. Cosmo gives a wolfy grumble as Keith scratches behind his ears, wincing. Keith stops moving so much, going still as Cosmo grumbles. Keith leans—leans and leans until he’s tucked comfortably into Lance’s side, one arm still stretched out to rest on Cosmo’s back.

Lance makes an inhuman noise. “Are you—are you _asleep_?” He peers down at Keith, who is snoring softly, his face more relaxed in his sleep. “Dear god, that was fast. Buddy, can I, um, move—” Lance shifts, suddenly glad he’d put on his pajamas to talk to the paladins. It has to be around eleven pm Earth time, and he can’t move—not now that Keith has fallen asleep on him.

Lance sighs, slides an arm around Keith, rests his head on top of Keith’s—he can feel his fuzzy ears on his cheek and smell the alien shampoo they all use. Keith has a nice snore—breathing in through his mouth, out through his nose in a tiny whistle.

Lance lets his eyes slide shut, a tiny smile on his face.

⸻⸻⸻⸻

When Keith wakes up, he’s unsure why he’s so warm. He blinks open his eyes, dimly aware of the throbbing pain in his mouth and ears. His world is still hazy, warmth covering him and reality blurred.

“Oh my god,” he hears someone say. Shiro. That’s Shiro’s voice. “Look at them, guys, they’re _cuddling_.”

“Dear fucking god,” Pidge says, her voice high and breathy with laughter.

“Language, Pidge,” Shiro says, but his voice is too full of humor to make it sound properly stern.

Keith blinks again and realizes why he can’t see anything—his face is tucked comfortably into the curve of someone’s neck. He shifts, pushes himself up on his forearms, and feels his face go bright red when he sees Lance.

(Lance, whose sleeping face is open and completely relaxed, and whose side Keith is tucked into, and whose warmth Keith seeks, even unconscious)

Keith turns, sees Shiro holding a video tablet in his left hand and grinning. His hair is mussed with sleep, and Hunk’s, Pidge’s, and Allura’s faces flash back at him from the screen of the tablet. Hunk is laughing too hard to say anything, Allura has that face she gets when she knows a secret of yours, and Pidge is smirking at him, brown eyes full of mischief and mirth.

Keith makes an inhuman noise and pushes himself backwards from Lance. Lance stirs, making a grumbling noise. Keith immediately misses his warmth. The pain is spreading across his body again, made worse by the lack of constant physical contact to distract from it.

(This is bad, this is bad, he’s—fallen—asleep and in love with this boy, this boy who doesn’t like him that way and who will only every see him as a friend, and Keith feels his heart swell at the sight of his bedhead and gleaming eyes, brown skin and long arms)

Lance yawns, mutters “Five more minutes,” and then rolls over, as best as he can in the tiny, narrow cot. Krolia snickers from somewhere Keith can’t see, and he shoots her a glare as best he can with the pain rapidly increasing.

There’s a blanket over them—over Lance and Keith, and Cosmo too, who’s giving wolf mutters and a big wolf yawn. He stretches— _Downward dog_ , Keith thinks, but with an actual dog—and licks Keith’s face. Then he sticks his head down to lick Lance’s face too.

Lance sputters and jolts upright. “What the—” Then he falls out of the cot, taking the blanket with him. Cosmo bounds off the bed and onto Lance, attacking him with doggy kisses.

Allura cackles from the tablet, a distinctly un-princess-like sound. Pidge is cackling too, and Hunk laughs so hard he actually falls out of his chair. Lance’s face is bright red, surely matching Keith’s, and the sudden absence of warmth from Cosmo, the blanket, and—and Lance—is enough to make him shiver.

“Are you okay, Lance?” Shiro asks, setting the tablet down on the cot to offer Lance his hand.

Keith snatches the tablet up and hits the _End Call_ button, watching the others’ faces disappear in favor of a black screen. “I _hate_ you,” he hisses at Shiro, who is watching him with an amused look. Lance is still on the floor. “I _hate_ you. I am _disowning_ you.”

Lance nudges Cosmo gently off of him and pushes himself up using the cot, avoiding Shiro’s gaze and offered hand. “I’m with Keith,” he mutters, suddenly looking very fixated on a certain spot in the worn Altean blanket. His tone changes, curious; a subject change that’s incredibly obvious. “How long were we asleep for?”

Shiro humors him. “About eight vargas,” he says. “The black lion hasn’t found a good place to land yet, so we’re just hanging out right now in the lions while Keith recovers.”

“I can pilot,” Keith says, swinging his legs off the cot. He attempts to push himself to stand and nearly faceplants—only Lance’s arms reach out to stop him from tasting a mouthful of comet metal.

Lance pushes Keith forcibly back on the bunk and says, “Whoa, there, Mullet. Bad idea.”

 _Yes,_ Black chimes in in Keith’s mind, her voice amused. _Listen to Lance. Has better ideas than you do._

Keith gasps out loud, dramatically smacking a hand to his chest. “How could you, Black? I thought we bonded!”

 _We did,_ Black says. _You just reckless idiot._ Her voice takes on a more sly tone. _Lance still infatuated with you, though._

Keith sputters out loud and decides to keep his thoughts in his head this time. _No, he’s not!_ Keith argues, letting his thoughts surge into Black’s minds. _He’s not._

“What did Black say?” Lance asks curiously.

Keith’s cheeks color. “Nothing,” he mutters, trying to avoid Shiro’s gaze, who looks like he heard the whole thing. Even though he isn’t a paladin anymore, an almost-complete bond to Black leaves marks—like being capable of listening in on conversations.

“I’m gonna ask Hunk if he can figure out some food,” Shiro says pointedly, smirking at Keith. “You guys—just hang out! _Bond_.” With that said, he walks out of the back of the black lion.

(Is it Keith’s imagination, or are Lance’s ears as red as Keith’s entire face?)

( _Yes, it’s your imagination,_ says the more skeptical of the voices in his head)

( _But what if—_ says another voice, one that sounds suspiciously like Hunk)

( _NO,_ shouts the other voice, and Keith gives up)

Lance sits on the other cot, closer than is strictly beneficial to Keith’s heart rate. “So…” He trails off, biting his lip.

“Sorry,” Keith says earnestly. “I think I fell asleep on you, and then—”

“Yeah, you did.” Lance cracks a grin. “We were talking, and, like, no offense, but you looked like you were in a lot of pain, and then you just kind of collapsed into my side and then—well, yeah. I couldn’t really move.”

Keith blinks at him, confused. “Yeah, you could’ve. Just wake me up. I’m used to it.”

Lance looks like he’s going to say something—something about how Keith shouldn’t be used to it—but then his expression changes. “Your hair is all purple now,” he says. “And you have the Galra ears.” He reaches out a hand and touches them.

(The warmth is welcome, especially when they still ache)

Keith slumps onto Lance before he can tell his body that that’s a very, very, incredibly bad idea—one that might inspire him to do something rash like run his hands through Lance’s hair. “Sorry,” he mutters. “Just—it hurts.”

“Where?” Lance inquires, looking worried.

“Everywhere,” Keith says. “I’m fine, though,” he adds, when Lance looks disturbed, and tries to lean away from Lance, toward the cold metal wall of the lion, but Lance doesn’t let him. In the space of half a millisecond, Lance has his arms around Keith, squeezing tightly.

(He tucks his face into Keith’s neck as Keith tenses, then relaxes, because it’s—)

(—so warm so warm _so warm_ —)

(and it seems to make the pain leach out of Keith wherever it touches)

“You idiot, that’s not _fine_ ,” Lance mumbles from his place somewhere in the crook of Keith’s neck.

Keith puffs out a laugh. “I’m okay, really.”

Lance draws back—Keith’s brain has the nerve to feel disappointed—and frowns at him. Keith laughs, laughs and laughs, but when he tries to he isn’t able to stop, and suddenly he’s bent in two, hacking up a lung. Keith gulps in a big breath as Lance peers at him with worried eyes. Something’s loose in his mouth, hard and warm and solid—

Keith spits into his hand. Blood and saliva and, in the middle of it all, a tooth, gleaming pearly white and scarlet red. His eyes widen as he feels a tooth slide into the empty place—sharp, too sharp.

Lance’s hands, gripping his shoulders, spreading warmth. “Keith,” he says, “breathe, buddy, it’s okay. Can you hear me?”

Keith’s hearing is weird, echoing the tones around and distorting them, but he nods, still staring at the tooth. Lance gets up, and Keith hears the rush of running water and the chilly crackle of an activating Altean ice pack.

Lance hands them all—a wet paper towel, a cloth bag, and an ice pack wrapped in a soft towel—to Keith. “Here, dude,” he says. “You can press it to your mouth, and clean off the teeth with the towel to put in that bag. Maybe you can put it under your pillow.”

Keith snorts, then _whimpers_ —a sound so unlike him that it has his hair standing on end and Lance staring at him anxiously—as another tooth loosens. There’s a fiery ache in his jaw.

Lance’s hand presses to his head, forces it down onto Lance’s shoulder. “Relax, Keith,” he says softly. “It’s not gonna be fun, but you’ve got to relax.”

Keith won’t relax— _can’t_ relax, the throbbing pain is too much—until Lance scratches at the spot on his ears again, and he slumps onto him. A high-pitched whine is coming from somewhere in Keith’s throat. He spits again, cleans the tooth off and drops it into the bag. It’s stupid, but it gives him something to focus on other than the pain.

“Hey, Shiro?” he hears Lance ask. “We need Krolia.”

“She went to the red lion to keep Coran and Kaltenecker company,” Shiro says. “Why?”

“Keith’s losing teeth. It’s—not a fun process,” Lance says, voice urgent. “I think having his mom here would help, even a little.”

Keith is pressing the ice pack to his cheek like it’ll help him survive, and he wants to say a thousand things, say _Thank you_ and _I hope Krolia gets here soon_ and maybe even _I love you_. But as it is, he’s barely able to keep his mind on the situation at hand.

He hears Shiro’s voice echo through the black lion. “Hey, Krolia? It’s Keith. He’s losing his teeth and regrowing them, and he’s in a lot of pain. Can you come over here?”

Krolia’s voice, a hint of panic at the edge of her steady soldier tone. “Of course. I’ll be right over.”

She appears in a flash of silver light, Cosmo at her side. Lance nods to her and stands up without a word. Krolia puts an arm around Keith, sitting on the cot. She strokes his hair, taking special care with his ears.

“Hey, um, Krolia?” Lance asks. He’s sitting on the floor, watching them nervously. “Please don’t be offended by me asking, but why does Keith have the fuzzy ears and you don’t?”

Krolia looks surprised by the question. Keith spits out another tooth, glad that Lance had asked. He hasn’t had a chance. “Oh,” Krolia says. “My mother had the traditional Galra ears, but my father had the more pointed ones. I inherited the pointed ones, but I assume Keith got the DNA from my mother—his grandmother.”

Lance hums, nodding. “What happened to them? Keith’s grandparents, I mean.”

Krolia’s face goes somber. “They’re dead. The planet I was born on was attacked by Galra who wanted to kill those in hiding from the empire. I only barely escaped. I was ten.”

“Oh.” Lance’s face saddens. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Krolia’s voice is gentle. She hugs Keith a little tighter, resumes stroking his hair. He leans into her. “It was a long time ago, and I had others. And now I have Keith.” She smiles.

Lance nods. “Hey, Keith,” he says, looking directly at him. “If you’re okay, I’m gonna go check in with Red.”

Keith nods from his position on Krolia’s shoulder. He winces when he talks, but manages to force words out. “That’s—fine. Thanks, Lance.”

Lance nods, placing a hand on Cosmo’s fur. “Hey, Cosmo,” Lance whispers to him. “You wanna go to the red lion, buddy?” Cosmo apparently does, because he disappears in a flash of silver light, leaving behind only the memory of their presence and the warm feeling in Keith’s cheeks.

Krolia gives him an approving look. “I like him,” she says, and her voice has that _I-think-I’m-being-subtle-but-I’m-really-not_ tone that Shiro gets, too, whenever he talks to Keith about embarrassing things.

Keith buries his face in her shoulder, unafraid of smearing blood all over her shirt, bought new at the space mall. He tries to come up with words, something to say that makes sense and won’t turn his entire face tomato red, but is spared when Black roars in his mind. _Found place to land,_ Black says, sounding satisfied. _We land now? You set down camp. Okay, Keith?_

 _Sounds great,_ Keith thinks. _I’m fine, Black, really. Just pain. Pain is temporary, right?_

Black sends him a skeptical feeling and then tilts into a dive toward a planet in an unoccupied solar system.

“Black found somewhere to land,” Keith tells Krolia and Shiro—and the others, through the comms. “We can set up camp there.”

(As Keith spits out another tooth, he can’t help but be grateful for Black, and for Krolia, and—)

(—and for Lance)

⸻⸻⸻⸻

When the lions land in a row on the dark planet, the first thing Hunk does is sprint out of the yellow lion and tackle Keith in a hug. Keith, who’d previously been stumbling out of the maw of the black lion, supported by Shiro, tenses and then melts into the hug. “Oh, hi, Hunk,” he mutters. “Is there a reason for this?”

“Don’t _scare_ me like that,” Hunk says, squeezing him extra tight. “You just went and got impaled and then poisoned and you—you went Galra and lost your teeth—”

“It’s okay, Hunk,” Keith says, patting him awkwardly on the back. “I’m fine now. It just hurts.”

Pidge darts out of the maw of the green lion and throws her arms around Keith too, wriggling in between him and Hunk. “You idiot. You have fucking purple skin and you say you’re _fine_ , I can’t fucking believe you.”

Allura puts her arms around all of them in a group hug. “We were all worried about you, Keith,” she says.

Keith’s ears perk up at the sound of Lance’s voice. Hunk looks at them, fascinated. “Oh, c’mon, are we hugging Keith now? I wanna join the group hug!” Lance whines. With his long arms, he can easily cover everyone.

When everyone finally lets go of Keith—which isn’t for a good long while—Hunk grins. “Hey, guys, you know what this means?” he asks, voice bubbly with excitement.

Pidge raises a sarcastic eyebrow. “What?”

“Camp out!” Hunk crows, grinning. “We can have a bonfire and, like, roast the alien equivalent of marshmallows and all sleep out under the stars, since this planet actually has oxygen! It’s gonna be great!”

Keith snorts. “I’m cool with that.”

Hunk throws an arm around Keith’s shoulder and pretends he’s not helping him walk. Keith’s changed into his regular clothes, though the bandage around his arm is visible and getting dirty. “We should change that,” Hunk says, tapping it with his index finger.

Keith nods as Hunk helps him limp out to where they decide to camp out—the ground is covered with weird spongy stuff that’s dry and soft, and the dirt is easy to dig. Hunk heads back into the yellow lion, comes out with a new bandage and some disinfectant.

He unwraps the bandage from Keith’s arm as they sit on the ground. Keith winces as he wipes it with the disinfectant, but stays silent. Hunk wraps it cleanly with the new, white bandage and pats it satisfactorily. “That’ll work.”

“Thanks, Hunk,” Keith says, voice soft but sincere. “I can help.”

“You can help by staying right here and not doing anything that could hurt you,” Hunk orders. “I can see the pain on your face, Keith. You can barely walk.”

Keith wrinkles his nose at him. “I can still— _do_ something. I want to.”

“I tell you what, you can organize these.” Hunk hands him a wad of sticky notes a foot thick. “Color, size, and weight.”

Keith nods and sets them down on the ground, lips pressed together in concentration. Lance is gathering firewood with Romelle. When he passes Keith, a soft look overtakes his features.

Hunk elbows him. “Ooooohhhh,” he jeers, smirking.

Lance’s face goes bright red. “Hunk—I don’t—no!” He accidentally trips over a stray root and falls, the firewood flying from his hands. Hunk helps him pick it up and has mercy. “Lance, can you grab the food from Red?” he asks.

Lance nods, sprinting off. Hunk kind of feels like sprinting himself—being cooped up in the lions for that long isn’t fun. He’d spent most of the trip talking with Yellow or the others or tinkering with one of his many projects. Not that he blames Keith—the opposite. He wishes this whole thing had never happened. But it had, and now poor Keith has to deal with the consequences.

Hunk shakes off that train of thought, dumps the firewood in front of Keith, who has five different piles going now. “Hey,” Keith remarks quietly, still focused on his task.

Hunk crouches down, begins digging in the dirt with his hands. Keith looks up, an expression of confusion playing across his features. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“Digging a fire pit!” Hunk chirrups, still scooping dirt from the hole. There had already been a sizable crater in the ground, and Hunk is just making it deeper. When he’s satisfied, he makes a pyramid of the logs, shredding some of the dry material and putting the tinder at the very bottom.

Lance returns with an armful of packages. The paladins, Shiro, Coran, Krolia, and Romelle, along with the various animals, slowly accumulate around Hunk’s fire pit.

Pidge takes a stick and impales a strange plant they’d found on a planet with it. “Someone light the fire,” she says. “I’m starving.”

Hunk nods, flicks a lighter and sets the tinder ablaze. The logs go up in flames quickly. Pidge excitedly sticks her plant into the fire. When it’s charred to her taste, she plucks it off the stick and takes an experimental bite. “It’s good,” she says, through a mouthful of food. “Kind of tastes like chicken.”

Keith takes a stick too and cooks a chunk of the plant. Soon everyone is eating the charred plant—Krolia cusses hers out when she manages to burn hers beyond the point of no return—and just talking.

“I remember this one time,” Romelle says, grinning, “when Bandor declared that he was only going to eat masha grass for the rest of his life, and he spent a week eating nothing but that. Nothing we said could convince him.”

The humans aren’t sure what she means, but Allura, Coran, and Krolia burst into laughter, so they smile anyway.

“Hey,” Shiro says, with a sly glance at Keith, “I remember this one time, Keith knew sign language for like, a really random reason—”

“You taught me!” Keith exclaims.

“A totally random reason,” Shiro assures them. “So anyway, he once insulted this guy in class without him even knowing it. Just making random gestures and calling him really rude names in ASL. And then a teacher found out, and she almost suspended him, but she didn’t have enough proof.”

Pidge throws her head back and laughs. Keith is bright red, but Hunk can see the gears turning in his head. Keith starts, “Did you guys know that Shiro is the reason the Garrison has night patrol?”

Shiro flushes. Lance grins. “Oh, do tell, Keith. Those patrol guys got me busted _so many times_ —”

“Hold it,” Pidge says. “Matt told me they had night patrol because someone pulled the fire alarm and set off the sprinklers in Iverson’s office and soaked everything.”

Keith nods, a bright grin on his face. “That was Shiro.”

Lance cackles. “Oh my god,” he says, wheezing. “Shiro, you are my _idol_.”

“It was an accident!” Shiro protests.

“Oh, _sure,_ ” Lance replies, grinning.

(It’s just—teasing—funny and happy and bright as they recount the many incidents of their lives that accumulated to bring them here, right here, right now)

Hunk tells them about the time Lance was forced to hide in a trash can to avoid Iverson. He includes all the specific details, like how Iverson almost tipped over the trash can but was distracted by another student’s loud snoring and how Lance had still smelled awful after two showers. “His exact words,” Hunk wheezes, as Keith laughs and Lance flushes, “were ‘This question for junk food was not worth it.’” He makes air quotes as he says it.

(Everyone is laughing, and Shiro’s smile reaches his eyes for the first time in movements, and Lance is staring at Keith as Keith laughs, a soft look on his face)

“Hold it,” Romelle demands. “Didn’t you mention something—something called marshmallows? You said you roasted them over the fire.”

Hunk’s eyes widen. “Romelle, you are a _genius,_ ” he breathes.

Romelle flushes. “Thanks?”

“We need marshmallows,” Hunk orders. “Lance, you look through the packages for something soft and squishy, and, y’know, something that could replace graham crackers.” He grins. “Smores!”

Pidge’s eyes widen. “I haven’t had a smore in, like, _forever,_ ” she says.

Hunk is slightly worried Shiro is going to begin openly salivating. He doesn’t, thankfully, though the grin won’t leave his face. “I, personally, haven’t had a marshmallow in two years, so I’m definitely up for a smore,” Shiro declares.

(Hunk feels bad for him, for the resigned tone in his voice mingling with the excited, but Shiro looks like an excited puppy, so he settles for patting his shoulder and grinning)

Lance comes up with something like alien Jell-O cubes, along with Olkari crackers. He passes them out. Pidge immediately spears her on a stick and shoves it into embers of the fire. It catches fire and she blows it out, cheeks puffing with effort. She surveys it proudly, sliding it off the stick and sandwiching it between two graham crackers.

Hunk roasts two at a time and shoves them both into his mouth, chewing happily. “Mmmm,” he says, because he can’t really say anything else. His mouth is too full.

Shiro shows a little restraint, only eating half the alien cube at a time.

(His eyes are finally fully saturated with happiness)

Allura and Romelle try theirs curiously. As it turns out, the Alteans _love_ smores. Like, almost as much as Hunk does, which is saying something. Coran shoves three— _three_ —into his mouth, shouting something muffled that might be one of his lengthy anecdotes or just him choking. Hunk isn’t sure.

Krolia munches on hers contentedly. “Your father made a fire one day and showed me these,” she tells Keith, her voice low. “It brings back nice memories.”

Keith leans against her legs, smiling. He holds a smore, melty alien goo oozing out the sides of the Olkari cracker. “Yeah,” he says. “It does.”

The conversation dissolves into chewing. Kaltenecker likes the smores, as do the mice, although Cosmo does not. When they’re finally finished eating, Hunk douses the fire with handy alien fire-dousing goo and heads to the lions to pull out sleeping bags.

He makes Pidge help, along with Lance, Krolia, and the Alteans, but leaves Shiro—he only has one arm—and Keith. Keith tries to get up, saying he wants to help, but Shiro yanks him back down and sits on him.

“No,” Shiro says, patting Keith on the head. “Stay here and recover.”

“How much do you _weigh_?” Keith wheezes. He’s flat on his stomach, Shiro sitting on his lower back, smirking. Hunk wants to laugh out loud at the sight of them—ever since Keith found Krolia, Shiro’s been able to act less like a father figure and more like an older sibling to Keith. Poor Keith must be being crushed by Shiro.

Hunk can see as he hurries back from Yellow, supplies in his arms. “Good job,” he calls. He tosses a sleeping bag at Shiro. It hits him in the back of the head, and Shiro topples forward, off Keith, who sits up, groaning. Keith soon falls back down, too, as Pidge lobs a pillow at him.

It’s dark now—the sun of the planet has set, leaving the atmosphere black and twinkling with stars. Hunk spreads out his sleeping bag. “Go put on your pajamas,” he tells all of them. Looking mildly confused, they do.

Keith stays sitting on his sleeping bag. “Aren’t you gonna change?” Hunk asks, raising one eyebrow.

Keith looks bewildered. “This is what I sleep in,” he says, gesturing at himself.

Hunk blinks in horror. “Oh, no,” he says, shaking his head. “No, no, no. We can’t have a sleepover without pajamas! Get up, get up. Go put on your pajamas. I know they’re in the black lion, I put them there.”

Keith stares at him for one, two, three seconds, stares at Hunk’s entirely serious face. He blinks again. His ears are flattened against the back of his head, and he looks almost—nervous?

A wave of realization rolls through Hunk. “You don’t have to if they’re uncomfortable,” he says. Keith looks surprised. “But Pidge says she likes stimming with them. They’re—what did she say?—’stimmy.’ And the sleeping bags are kind of like weighted blankets.”

Keith opens his mouth to speak, then shuts it. Then he pushes himself up, limping toward the black lion. Hunk follows him. He needs to change into pajamas, too.

Hunk throws an arm around Keith’s shoulders, pretending he’s not helping him walk. It’s the second time today he’s done it. Keith looks at him for a moment, then put a hand on Hunk’s shoulder, sending him a grateful gaze.

When they meet up back at the campsite, Keith looks intensely uncomfortable. He keeps picking at the hem of his red pajama shirt and wrinkling his nose. When Lance walks over, he freezes, staring at Keith then at the ground, the back of his neck curiously red.

Hunk smirks. “You okay, Lance?” he asks.

Lance sputters, whipping around to face Hunk. “What? Wait, no, it’s just—it’s just hot.”

“I’ll bet it is,” Pidge mutters. Lance glares at her, face totally red now. Keith looks confused.

Romelle and Allura are sitting on one sleeping bag, Romelle in a borrowed nightgown, and Krolia sits cross-legged, surveying the situation. “So,” Hunk begins. “It’s come to my attention that many of you have _never played sleepover games before_.”

Keith blinks. “Why is this relevant?”

“Because!” Hunk exclaims. He lowers his voice, makes it a spooky whisper. “We’re going to play them now.”

“Ooh!” Lance yells, waving his hand in the air. “Truth or dare!”

Hunk points at him. “Great idea, Lance! You go first.”

Lance grins and turns to Pidge. “Truth or dare, Pidgeon?”

Pidge considers, her eyes glazing over like they do whenever she concentrates hard on something. She wrinkles her nose and finally says, “Dare.”

Lance taps his chin, then his eyes light up. Hunk knows his friend, and he knows what kind of wicked dares he can come up with. So he’s not surprised when Lance whispers, “I dare you to put alien marshmallow in Coran’s mustache.”

“What was that?” Coran asks. “I couldn’t hear you.”

Pidge’s hazel eyes are bright. The corners of her mouth curl up in a wicked grin. “Gladly,” she says, seizing a leftover marshmallow.

Coran blinks at her when she creeps over to him. “Oh, hey, number five,” he says. “Could you repeat the dare? I didn’t hear—”

He’s cut off rapidly when Pidge shoves her handful of goo into his face—specifically his mustache. He yelps and falls over as Pidge turns and runs, face red with suppressed laughter.

When Coran’s finally finished chasing Pidge—she’s surprisingly fast, and he hadn’t been able to come close to catching her—she sits back down, face red and voice breathless. “Hunk,” she says. “Truth or dare?”

If Lance is wicked, Pidge is downright vile. “Truth,” Hunk says, without hesitation.

“Do you love Shay romantically?”

“I—what— _no_ —” Hunk’s voice cracks. “Dare,” he finally croaks.

“You picked truth!” Lance sing-songs, grinning. “Answer the question!”

Keith conceals his smile in his eyes, and Shiro’s a master of poker faces. But Allura’s giggling and whispering to Romelle, and soon Romelle’s giggling too. Hunk sucks in a deep breath. “Yes,” he croaks.

(Pidge falls backward, laughing, and so does Lance)

After several extraordinarily personal questions and dares (Lance asks Coran whether he’s ever kissed someone, to which Coran launches into an extremely detailed and embarrassing account, Romelle dares Allura to depict a life through interpretive dance, and Shiro is dared to dye his hair purple, to which he agrees readily) it’s finally Pidge’s turn again.

Pidge smirks at Keith and then turns to Lance. “Hey, Lance,” she says.

(Her voice is slick and slow as molasses, and Hunk grins, waiting)

“Truth,” Lance answers, without her even needing to ask the question.

(Pidge’s eyes light up, and Hunk is forced to disguise a laugh by coughing into his sleeve)

“If you had to kiss one person in this group, who would it be?”

Shiro bursts out laughing. Lance is bright red, Keith looks curious, Allura looks knowing. Hunk, feeling his facial muscles, is probably making the real life equivalent of a lenny face right now.

Lance looks frantically around at the people crowded in the clearing. Shiro is still laughing. Keith has his head tilted, ears perked up. _Waiting_ , Hunk realizes. _He’s curious._

Lance sucks in a deep breath, lets it out, face red as a tomato. “Keith,” he whispers, barely.

Pidge smirks at him. “What was that, Lance? I couldn’t hear you.”

Lance turns, if it’s possible, redder. “Keith!” he blurts, burying his face in his hands. Pidge bursts out cackling, pushing her glasses up as she laughs.

Keith looks surprised—stunned, actually, eyes wide and ears perked straight up. His face reddens rapidly. He opens his mouth—trying to say something, but nothing comes out, Hunk notes—and finally manages to croak, “ _What?_ ”

“Alright,” Shiro calls. “That’s enough embarrassment for one night. Everyone needs to head to bed.”

“Awww,” Hunk protests, but Pidge slides into her sleeping bag without protest. Lance and Keith do too, probably to hide their blushing faces— _honestly, those two are so oblivious, seriously_ —and so do the others.

Hunk wriggles into his sleeping bag, puts his head on his pillow. “Good night,” he calls.

“‘Night,” Pidge says, yawning.

“Good night,” Shiro says.

“‘Night,” Keith choruses.

Lance says, “Sleep tight.”

“Don’t let the Coronion Wimblesnaffer bite!” Coran chirps from his sleeping bag.

There’s still a tiny bit of chatter, but even that dies down after the initial “Good night”s are said. It’s quiet, peaceful, the only noise rustling as someone shifts and the background chorus of alien bugs.

Hunk lets his eyes slide shut, a smile still on his face.

(He’s snoring within minutes)

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Shiro is awake for a while after all the other have fallen asleep.

It’s not that he isn’t tired, although that’s part of it—he’s just watching. Although he knows everything is fine, he just can’t fall asleep. So he sits, cross-legged, and listens to Pidge and Allura’s soft snores and Coran, Hunk, and—surprisingly— _Romelle’s_ louder ones.

He is just starting to drift off—to slump out of his usual soldier posture and feel his eyes slide shut—when he hears a shifting. He snaps his head around, eyes searching for anything out of the ordinary.

It’s just Lance, sitting up in his sleeping bag, a calculating look on his face. Shiro watches, unable to tear his eyes away, even though he feels like he’s intruding on some quiet, intimate moment. Lance scoots even closer to Keith, who is sprawled on his side, almost his entire body inside of the sleeping bag.

Lance stares down at Keith, his face morphing into something soft and indescribable. He lifts one hand and brushes the bangs from Keith’s eyes, taking special care to not wake him up. His thumb lingers on Keith’s forehead, just between his eyes.

Lance pulls his hand away and begins to comb through Keith’s dark (purple) hair, fingers brushing through the strands almost wistfully. Keith seems to curl into the touch, turning on his side and his face relaxing even further.

Lance’s expression screws up in obvious pain, and he gently returns his hand to his sleeping bag, both hands fisting in the alien material.

Shiro blinks once, twice, thinking. Why is Lance staring at Keith like that—like something’s twisting inside of him, sickening his insides and making him screw his face up this way?

Several words surface in Shiro’s memory: _Adam_ and _crush._ He almost snaps his fingers, it’s so obvious. Lance is _lovesick_.

Embarrassingly sappy word aside, Shiro knows how that feels. He calls out, quietly enough not to wake anyone. “Hey, Lance.”

Lance snaps around, looking like he’s been caught doing something mildly illegal. “Shiro!” he whispers, eyes darting down to Keith and then back to Shiro.

Do you want to talk?” Shiro asks, his soft voice carrying over the campsite. He pointedly glances at Keith. “About anything?”

Lance, it seems unconsciously, reaches out, tangling his fingers in Keith’s hair. “No, I’m—I’m fine,” he says, cheeks coloring. Then he wrinkles his nose. “Actually, yeah, could we talk?”

“Of course,” Shiro says. He pats the ground beside him. After one last lingering glance at Keith, Lance wriggles his way out of the sleeping bag and moves to sit beside Shiro on the dry—yet squishy?—ground.

“So…” Lance starts, then trails off. He bites his lip. “I’ve been thinking. About myself, actually.”

Shiro nods slightly, hums a single long note to show that he’s still listening. He suddenly realizes that his hair is still dyed purple—the dye had said it would last for a movement. It’s a stupid thing to be worrying about, but he reaches up and brushes at his “floof,” as Emma called it, anyway.

“And I realized—I mean, I’ve always known that—um, I’m… bisexual,” Lance says awkwardly. “And I know that my family is amazing and will definitely accept me for who I am, but Cuba’s really not the greatest with, y’know, LGBTQ stuff?”

Shiro nods. “It’s twenty-three fourteen, and they’re still too worried about who loves who to fix poverty.”

“Yeah,” Lance agrees. “And, also—they always told me that love was between a man and a woman, and—that idea is kind of seared into my brain, so even though I _know_ —” He stops abruptly, looking worried. Shiro’s stomach twists as he realizes Lance’s eyes look like shattered glass.

“Internalized homophobia,” Shiro says. “Love can be between anyone. Man and man, woman and woman, man and woman, person and person. Person and alien.” He sends a pointed look at Keith’s sleeping form.

“Do you—have you talked with anyone about this before?” Lance asks, and Shiro is relieved to hear his voice sound slightly lighter. “It seems like you know what to say.”

Shiro grins. “Keith came out to me when he was thirteen,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. Lance pointedly ignores him. “He’s gay. I kind of had to help him. But I had my own experiences to rely on.”

Lance’s eyes widen, and he claps a hand over his mouth to muffle something—a shriek, Shiro thinks. “You’re _gay?_ ” he exclaims, looking disbelieving.

“M-hm,” Shiro agrees. “I didn’t really—have my parents, but I came out to my roommate and then my friends at senior cadet year in the Garrison.” He gives a wan smile. “I was engaged to someone back on Earth, you know. His name was Adam.”

Lance’s eyes go even wider. Shiro hadn’t thought it was even possible. “Wait, like— _Adam?_ ” Lance demands. “Professor Wazir?”

Shiro nods.

“Oh my god,” Lance says excitedly. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, he was _awesome_ , he didn’t even give us that much homework—wait.” He seems to notice the quietly sad look Shiro is giving the ground. “What happened with you guys?”

Shiro swallows. “We broke up,” he says shortly. “I went on the Kerberos mission.”

“So I guess that was a bad idea,” Lance says. He’s trying to lighten the mood, Shiro can tell, and he appreciates his effort, though his soul still feels heavy.

“No,” Shiro says. “If I hadn’t gone on the Kerberos mission, none of this might have happened. We wouldn’t have found Voltron. We wouldn’t be the _amazing protectors of the universe, coming to save the day!_ ” He sing-songs the theme song a tiny alien had made up for them, a wry grin making its way onto his face. “I wouldn’t be a gay, _unarmed_ war hero.”

Lance’s eyes widen so far he reminds Shiro of an owl. “Did you—did you just make a _pun?_ ” he demands. He suddenly throws his arms around Shiro.

Shiro gives a little “oof” and then hugs back, squeezing Lance’s shoulders. “You’re pretty brave, kid,” he says. “It takes a lot of courage to come out to people, and I can tell Hunk and Pidge already know.”

Lance draws back. “Thanks, Shiro,” he says, smiling. He looks over at Keith. “I feel a lot better now.”

“You’d better make me best man at your wedding,” Shiro warns.

Lance’s face reddens, and he blinks. “Wait—what— _no_ ,” he protests, squeaking slightly. “I take it all back. You’re a terrible person.”

Shiro snorts.

They talk for a long while after that—about their times at the Garrison, at first.

“The Garrison is, like, so homophobic,” Lance says, shaking his head.

“You have no idea,” Shiro agrees. “They’re very averse to anything that doesn’t fit their strict viewpoints of how the world should be. Once, one of the admirals ripped up my friend’s little lesbian flag that she kept on her desk, so in retaliation, I snuck into her room and spray-painted a straight flag on her bed.”

“You did _not_ ,” Lance says gleefully.

And about Adam:

“He was the best cook,” Shiro tells Lance. “And he knew a lot about chemistry. Once, he told someone something rude entirely in periodic table elements.”

“Legend,” Lance says, awestruck. “What was he like?”

Shiro smiles at the memories that flood his mind. “Really smart. And sarcastic. He had two moms, and a big dog, and he was Muslim. His prayers were always sort of calming.”

Lance grins, a soft smile that Shiro thinks might be related to him comparing school-Adam to Adam-Adam.

And then about Lance’s time with the clone:

“I’m sorry about how the clone treated you,” Shiro says to Lance.

“Don’t be sorry!” Lance protests, looking at Shiro like he’s insane. “It wasn’t you, it was the clone.”

“But the way he treated you—”

“Was not in any way reminiscent of how you’re treating me now, so I’m _fine,_ ” Lance declares. “You shouldn’t be sorry, but I’ll make you sorry if you keep apologizing for shit that isn’t your fault.”

“Language, Lance,” Shiro reprimands, although it’s not as stern as it could be. “You’re starting to sound like Keith.”

Lance shrugs. “He’s rubbing off on me. I think it’s the red lion.”

Finally, Shiro starts to notice Lance’s yawns every other sentence. “You should go to bed,” Shiro says, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s not likely we’ll get a chance to sleep for this long for a while.”

“Fiiiiiine,” Lance says, dragging out the syllable. He yawns, though, and blinks tiredly. “Thanks again, Shiro.”

“No problem,” Shiro says. “Sleep well, Lance.”

Lance smiles, then slowly gets to his feet and walks over to where his sleeping bag is. He wriggles into it, leaving his arms free. After a moment of hesitation, he takes Keith’s hand, grinning softly.

(Shiro smiles. Lovestruck idiots)

He slides into his sleeping bag and shuts his eyes. After a few minutes, he’s out like a light.

⸻⸻⸻⸻

“Allura,” someone says.

Allura waves a hand in front of her face, her eyes still shut tight. “Go away,” she grumbles.

“It’s time for breakfast,” the person says insistently.

“Breakfast can go quiznak itself,” Allura mutters. She turns over and buries her face in her pillow.

The someone yanks it out from under her head. Allura grunts as she flops to the squishy-dry ground, but still doesn’t open her eyes. “You know, as a princess, I thought you would be the first one up,” says the someone. They drop the pillow on her face. She can _hear_ their grin.

Anyone who knew her wouldn’t say that. Allura frowns and finally opens her eyes, blinking owlishly up at the beaming sun and an equally beaming Romelle.

“Ugh,” Allura mutters. She rubs at her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Time for breakfast,” Romelle says. She looks absurdly cheerful for someone who’s probably only just woken up. Her hair is in a loose cloud around her head, and she’s grinning at Allura, who probably looks awful.

Allura groans and sits up. “Fine,” she mutters. “I’ll be there in a tick.”

Peering at herself in the bathroom of the blue lion, she decides that she _does_ look awful. Her hair is matted and tangled, but she doesn’t feel like doing anything with it, so she just ties it back. Her eyes are bleary and unfocused, and her nightgown is rumpled.

She changes and trudges out of the blue lion, absentmindedly fiddling with the hem of her t-shirt. She’d bought the clothing at the space mall, but hadn’t seen a reason to wear it yet. Now, she wants to. Just because it’s comfortable. For no other reasons. She doesn’t let herself glance at Romelle.

(She does)

(Her brain mutters _Stupid stupid stupid_ but she does anyway, because she’s never been one for rules)

When she arrives at the breakfast congregation, conversation ceases abruptly. Allura fidgets in the awkward silence. Finally, Lance breaks the silence. “Wow,” Lance says, grinning at Allura. “I feel a strange sense of deja vu. Where’d you get those?”

Allura looks down at her clothing. She’s wearing a plain pink t-shirt and some colorful capris in all shades of yellow, along with a “denim” jacket, as the vendor had called it. On her feet are “converse,” dark purple, with black laces that sparkle in the sunlight. “At the Earth-themed store in the space mall,” Allura tells Lance. “I liked the clothing they had to offer.”

Pidge grins at her. “You look great.”

“Yeah!” Hunk chimes in.

“It’s no Altean formal attire, but it quite suits you,” Coran says.

“You look good,” Krolia says shortly, but she’s smiling, a near match of Keith’s smile. Allura has a sneaking suspicion that Keith’s is due to more than her new outfit, made sneakier by his darting glances at Lance.

Romelle is speechless. She blinks at Allura, then hurriedly sits down, cheeks red. Allura doesn’t let herself wonder why she’s blushing. It’s the sun. It’s hot. That’s it.

(That’s it, but Allura still finds herself sneaking glances as Coran hands out nasty alien oatmeal)

(As they attempt to make it taste better by adding various ingredients)

(At Romelle’s beaming smile, at her still-messy hair, at—everything)

(And Allura’s mind still screams _Stupid stupid stupid,_ but it’s quieted by something settling warmly in her chest)

After the meal, Romelle approaches Allura. She’s wearing her normal clothing, but Allura can see a rip in the fabric of her tunic and a smudge on her pants. “You should braid your hair,” Romelle suggests. “I think it’d look nice.”

“Okay,” Allura says, surprised by how readily she agrees. She doesn’t regret it, though, not when Romelle brightens. “I can’t do it to myself, though,” she adds.

Romelle nearly jumps up, grinning. “I’ll do it!” she exclaims.

Allura sits down in front of Romelle, who carefully separates her hair into three thick strands and begins braiding it. The gentle tugging sensation feels nice on Allura’s scalp, and she's hyper-aware of Romelle’s closeness, of her own bright smile.

Pidge comes over. “Oh, man,” she says. “I haven’t braided my hair in forever.”

“I can do it!” Lance says, jumping out of, seemingly, nowhere.

Pidge sits cross-legged on the ground, too, and Lance twists her hair into two braids, one on either side. It doesn’t take long at all. “It’s nice,” Pidge says, when Lance is finished. “I like having my hair out of my face. Hey, Allura,” she says, turning toward Allura, “do you have, like, a headband or something I could borrow? To get my bangs out of my face?”

“Of course,” Allura says, smiling warmly at her. “It’s in the blue lion—I can get it as soon as Romelle’s done.”

“Almost!” Romelle chirrups. “I just need a hair tie. You have a _lot_ of hair,” she tells Allura.

Allura produces a hair tie and holds it up. “Here.”

Romelle ties it off and looks proudly at her work. “Done!”

Allura looks at herself in the mirror Lance provides. The braid is long and thick, starting at her scalp and going all the way to her waist. When she turns her head, it feels lose—nothing tight or tugging. “Thank you, Romelle,” she says. “It’s beautiful.”

Romelle blushes. “It was nothing.”

Keith wanders over, blinking at the group. “What are you guys doing?”

Lance’s eyes widen, and a gleeful expression overtakes his face. “We’re having a braiding party,” he says. “We can braid your hair!”

Keith’s expression is entirely deadpan. “No,” he says.

“C’moooonnn,” Lance whines. “ _Please?_ Keith? Space cat Keith? Galra Keith? Super-swordsman-awesome-dude-who’d-look-great-with-a-braid-Keith?”

He continues pestering Keith in this way—with increasingly embarrassing nicknames that are definitely compliments—until, eventually, Keith gives in. “ _Fine,_ ” he says, cheeks coloring. “I’ll do it. Just stop talking.”

“Lay down,” Lance orders. “On your stomach.”

Keith obeys, propping himself up on his elbows, although his ears are pricked back against his head. Allura gets the feeling he’s never had his hair done before. “Is this just an excuse to sit on me?” Keith asks, as Lance situates himself cross-legged on Keith’s lower back.

Lance huffs a laugh. “Maybe.”

He combs through Keith’s hair with his fingers. Keith shuts his eyes, and Allura watches with an amused look on her face as a deep rumble starts to come from somewhere in Keith’s chest.

Lance sputters with laughter. “Are you _purring?_ ”

“Maybe,” Keith mutters. He looks tired but content, a soft smile on his face as Lance finger-combs through his hair. “I’m not a morning person.”

Allura pats his head sympathetically. Lance smacks her hand gently. “ _Away_ ,” he says, making a shooing motion with his hand. “Hair mastery is in the making.”

Lance twists Keith’s hair into a braid that reaches almost to his shoulders. Keith’s purring has stopped by then, and Allura hands Lance another hair tie so he can tie it off. Lance pats Keith’s head several times, still positioned on top of Keith.

Keith reaches up to smack his hands away. “Off,” he says. “You weigh a ton.”

“Nope!” Lance crows, grinning.

Keith sighs, then shoves himself to the side. With an unearthly shriek, Lance falls off of Keith, who smirks at him, pushing himself to a sitting position. Lance sputters from his spot on the ground. “Keith!” he exclaims dramatically. “I could have died!”

“But you didn’t,” Keith says shortly. His smirk still hasn’t vanished from his face. Allura snickers to herself, and then Shiro and Krolia wander over.

“What are you all doing?” Krolia asks, looking perplexed.

“We’re having a braiding party!” Romelle chirrups.

Shiro snorts. When Allura looks at him, confused, he explains, “Sorry, it’s just—” He laughs into his fist. “Once, Iverson told me to get my hair out of my face, so I just braided it up and out of the way for a week. He never mentioned it again.”

Allura cackles at the image of Shiro with his floof braided. “We can braid it now, if you like,” she says.

Shiro looks like he’s going to say no, but then he wrinkles his nose. “Okay,” he says.

Shiro’s hair is still purple—the dye is going to last for a movement. Allura separates the floof into three separate parts and twines them together, tying it off with a fancy ribbon she pulls from her pocket. She likes this denim jacket—more than she wants to admit.

Krolia is coerced into having her hair braided too—Lance does it, with Keith making dry commentary from the side. Coran wanders over and has his hair braided, with a lot of fancy clips that Allura grabs from the blue lion. Hunk’s hair is too short to braid, so he just sits to the side and watches, grinning and occasionally making comments on the hairstyles.

Allura braids Romelle’s hair herself, into two parts. Her hair is soft and a nice shade of blond—it smells like the flowery shampoo they’d bought at the space mall. She has to remind herself to concentrate as she twists the hair together.

Finally, when everyone with braidable hair has had their hair braided, Coran claps his hands. There’s a large ornamental butterfly clipped to his mustache, which is braided on both sides. “Alright, team!” he exclaims. “This has been a lovely time, and now we need to get on the road!”

Allura nods. “Hey, Romelle?” she asks. Romelle swivels and peers at her—

—adorably—

—and Allura tries to ignore her heart speeding up. She swallows and continues, “Would you like to ride with me in the blue lion?”

Romelle blinks. “Me?” she asks, pointing at herself. Is it Allura’s imagination, or do her cheeks color? “Oh. Of course! I would love to!”

Allura smiles. “Wonderful. I just wanted someone to talk to.”

They head into the lions, and Allura’s beaming smile seems to stick to her face. Hunk gives her a pointed look, waggling his eyebrows, grinning. She equally pointedly ignores him in favor of staring at Romelle—her bright eyes, the soft-edged turquoise _V_ s just below her eyes.

Romelle bounces up the ramp to the blue lion.

Allura takes her seat in the piloting chair. Romelle immediately begins to ask questions. “What does this do? How do you do that? Can Blue act on her own, without a paladin?”

Allura tries to answer the rapid-fire queries, grinning. Romelle could come across as annoying to others, but she’s just so—herself—bright and bubbly despite all that’s happened to her in her short life.

“Oh, hey,” Romelle says, after a while. “Do you happen to have any clothing I could change into? Mine is—not in the best shape.”

Allura blinks, thinking. _Hey, Blue,_ she says to the lion. _Is it okay if I get Romelle some clothing? I’ll only be a moment._

 _Be fine,_ Blue says. Allura can hear the smirk in her voice. _You have crush. I understand._

 _I—what—no_ , Allura sputters in her head, glad Romelle can’t hear her, though she’s peering curiously at Allura’s red cheeks and embarrassed face. She stands from the chair and goes to the back of the blue lion, handing Romelle a pile of clothing. “That should be in your size,” she says. “If not, we can just find something else.”

“Thank you,” Romelle says. She ducks into the bathroom. She’s quick to change; Allura retakes her place in the pilot’s seat and ignores Blue’s teasing jabs at her. When Romelle comes out, she says, quietly and almost shy, “What do you think?”

Allura turns—

—and is struck speechless.

Romelle looks good. Like, really good. Color floods to Allura’s cheeks as she takes in the denim shorts and yellow-green tank top Romelle is wearing, along with sneakers. Her clothing is folded, draped over one arm.

Allura swallows. Her throat is curiously dry. “Um—you look nice. I like the clothing.” She coughs. “What I’m trying to say is—you look really nice.”

Romelle brightens. One braid is draped over each shoulder—she looks excited and bright and too, too beautiful for Allura to handle. She may need to call Lance to find out exactly how to handle this bisexual crisis. “Thanks,” Romelle says. She sits down, leans against the side of the piloting chair, and, for once, is silent.

(It’s a thoughtful silence, thick but not awkward)

(Romelle’s breathing is steady and quiet and seems to resonate in Allura’s chest)

(She stares out the window, stares and stares and stares, thinks, but—)

(—but she smiles, so it’s not bad at all, not in the least)

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Lance is gonna do it.

Lance is gonna do it, and he’s not sure how the everloving fuck he _is_ gonna do it, because the very thought of it sends a rush of nervousness into his stomach and a warm feeling to his cheeks, but he’s gonna do it.

He’s gonna confess to Keith.

The more he thinks about it, the more he thinks he shouldn’t do it. How could someone like Keith—top pilot, awesome swordsman, all-around-cooler-than-Lance—like Lance, let alone match his feelings? And Lance has a lot of feelings—they ebb and flow like tides in his stomach.

He loves this boy with everything he’s got, which is a lot. Sometimes the feelings feel like they’re going to rise up and engulf him, they’re so strong. So strong they almost hurt, but the exact opposite, like you’re jumping off a cliff, but you know you’ll land safely.

He’s only got one option left. His hand freezes for a moment before he hits the button, and Hunk’s face appears on the screen before him.

Hunk seems to read his expression before Lance can even get a word out. He holds up a hand and fumbles for a button, tapping out a code. “There,” Hunk says. “Now the line is private.” He smirks at Lance. “Is this about Keith?”

Lance opens his mouth to protest, then closes it. He doesn’t have anyone in the lion with him right now—luckily for him, because he’s a nervous wreck. He swallows, then decides _fuck it._ “I want to confess to Keith,” Lance blurts.

Fuck his brain. Seriously.

Hunk leers at Lance. “Ohoho!” he exclaims, then, louder, pointing at Lance, “OHOHO!”

“I don’t know how to do it,” Lance presses on, because apparently _today_ , of all days, is the day he has no brain-to-mouth filter. “I’m not even sure if—if it’s reciprocated, and I just—I just—” He exhales.

“Oh, buddy, you better believe it’s reciprocated,” Hunk says, but his voice is comforting. “I think you should do that exercise—you know, the one where you write out all your feelings on a piece of paper?”

Lance blinks. When he’d first learned about it, he’d thought it was stupid, useless—but now it doesn’t seem like a terrible idea. “I think—yeah,” Lance says. “Thanks, Hunk.”

Hunk grins at him through the screen. “Any time, buddy.” He presses _end call_ and disappears.

Lance grabs a piece of paper and an alien pencil and sits, poised with the pencil hovering above the paper. He thinks for a moment, biting his lip.

_Hi Samurai._

That sounds strange, almost—flirty—but he’s never going to give this to Keith anyway, so he leaves it.

_So lately, I’ve been having a bisexual crisis. You caused it. I don’t forgive you but it’s okay because I kind of have a huge fucking crush on you._

Lance wrinkles his nose, thinking.

_I don’t actually think it’s a crush. It was a crush a long time ago, way before you left for the Blade, but now it’s more than that. I get this weird fucking tangle of feelings in my chest every time I see you and it’s nice but also weird? Because I’ve never felt that way about anyone before. And definitely not a boy. Or an alien._

It feels nice, just writing it down, getting it all out on paper. His grammar is horrific, but Lance doesn’t care about that right now. He keeps writing. It flows easily, now that he’s gotten started, begins to sound normal.

_So now it’s love. That’s it. Keith, Mullet, Samurai, I’m in love with you. It’s really stupid actually. Of all people, I fell in love with the half-Galra hothead swordsman former-Marmorite. Love is weird._

_Keith, I really, really love you. I’m not really sure how to deal with it, which is why I’m writing it down now, so that I can deal with this huge stupid jumble of feelings. Feelings suck. I think you’ll agree._

_Love (I hope),_

_Lance_

Lance reads the letter once, twice, eyes roving over it. Every syllable rings true—the loopy handwriting is hard (and nice) to read, the “Keith”s written with curling _K_ s.

He folds it, cheeks coloring, even though he knows he’s alone.

Against his better judgement, he slips it into a pocket in the red lion—only accessible by a tiny button. Keith will never find it.

⸻⸻⸻⸻

After another quintant in the lions, they finally set down on another uninhabited planet. They set up the special oxygen tents they’d bought at the space mall, because the atmosphere is less than point one percent oxygen and Keith would rather not asphyxiate.

It’s late—a dying white dwarf lives at the center of the solar system, but it no longer radiates much heat, so the planet is dark—but it’s past midnight already by Earth time. The planet is cold, but it’s the only one that survived its star’s expansion into a red giant, before it, you know, drifted off as a planetary nebula and left its core behind.

Coran, Krolia, Shiro, and Romelle look different with their faces obscured by helmets. Keith helps to set up the tents as quickly as possible, because he’s starving for some real food—Hunk’s been cooking, but he can’t really make anything hot in the lions.

They pair off. Hunk and Pidge, Shiro and Krolia, Allura, the space mice, and Romelle, Coran with Cosmo, because no one else wants to room with him. They’ve left Kaltenecker in the red lion.

Keith’s eyes widen when he realizes what that means. Lance elbows him, grinning. “Guess you’re stuck with me tonight,” he says, and his tone is joking but his eyes are soft, and Keith—

Keith hates himself for blushing. He trudges off, over toward the area where they’ll set up their tent, and Lance hurries after, adorably oblivious as always.

Keith nails the pegs into the burnt-dark dirt and stomps on them for good measure, attaching the tent. He’s smacked in the face—well, in the helmet, fortunately—by tent sticks, and Lance bursts into laughter.

“Shut the fuck up,” Keith mutters, punching him in the shoulder. It’s lighthearted, though, and he doesn’t punch _that_ hard, despite the fact that Lance gasps dramatically and clutches as the spot Keith punched.

Keith and Lance finally get their tent set up, and Keith takes two bowls of hot alien stew from Hunk and slides into the tent. Lance holds the flap open as Keith maneuvers the bowls of stew.

He sets them down and fumbles with the remote as Lance secures the tent flap so that the oxygen will stay inside and they won’t suffocate in their sleep.

“Hmmm,” Keith muses, staring at the buttons. “I think—this one.” He presses the button in question and reels back as disco lights begin flashing in the ceiling of the tent. Red, blue, yellow, purple—all sorts of colors, reflecting off his helmet and making him dizzy with their movement.

Lance snorts. “Definitely that button.” He takes the remote from Keith and presses another button, this one with a symbol in the Galra language below it. The disco lights shut off, and there’s a whooshing noise as the oxygen starts flowing. “Aha!” Lance exclaims triumphantly.

Keith takes off his helmet. His ears feel cramped in it—he’ll have to do something about that eventually, but for now, he’ll live. He sighs in the cool oxygen flowing through the tent, then picks up his bowl and spoon.

The soup is hot and spicy, with chunks of alien plant material in it. Keith chews and swallows, sniffing through his nose. It fills the tent with a good scent, familiar but slightly _off_ , though not in a bad way. Lance eats, too, then unrolls his sleeping bag on the silvery cloth floor of the tent.

Keith sets both bowls in the corner of the tent, then rolls his out, too. He sets his helmet back on his head, Lance mirroring his movements, then trudges sleepily out of the tent. He opens the door of the bathroom in the black lion and gets changed, then puts his helmet back on his head and walks briskly toward the tent.

The cold is more brisk, now—he can feel it through the cloth of his pajamas. He slides into the tent to find Lance already there, rubbing his arms with his hands. Keith lifts his helmet off his head and sets it in the corner, then wriggles into his sleeping bag, putting his head on the pillow. “Good night,” Keith yawns.

“Night,” Lance says. He turns on his side so he’s facing the wall and not Keith, and that shouldn’t mean anything to Keith, but it does, because—

Well, because he was thinking of doing the same. He knows he wouldn’t be able to resist staring at Lance, at his sleeping form and drooling mouth, which shouldn’t be endearing but is anyway. But Lance turns before Keith can, so Keith stays like this, on his side.

It takes all of five minutes for Lance to fall asleep. He rolls over onto his back, soft snores coming from his open (drooling) maw.

(And Keith looks)

(Looks at brown skin shaded in the dark and an open mouth drooling beads of saliva and eyes shut softly)

(Looks at this boy, who makes feelings stir deep in his chest, who yells when he’s excited and draws away when he’s not, who deserves so much more than him and will probably get more)

(And Keith is okay with that, is happy for him—but feelings still stir in his chest)

(He’s not he’s not he’s not)

(It’s selfish, and awful, but Keith wants— _yearns_ —to love this boy and be loved in turn, to be needed and a certain place in Lance’s life)

(Stupid stupid stupid)

(He turns on his side to try to stop the churning in his stomach, but to no avail)

(Keith groans, shuts his eyes tightly, and forces himself to stay still. He replays the day’s events in his head until they’re monotone, and he keeps his eyes shut, and he doesn’t let himself look)

(And finally, too soon and too quickly, he drifts off to sleep)

He dreams of Lance, of Lance’s bright grinning mouth and Lance's hand warm in his and Lance’s face tired but beaming. He dreams of a beach with soft sand and lapping waves and sun setting with shades of pink and orange. Keith dreams of all of these things, and he smiles in his sleep, and when he wakes up, he’s not tired.

He sits upright, surprised by the lack of a dull ache in his bones. All his muscles have been sore since the Galra transformation, but now he feels good—like he could run miles, do a thousand pushups, do anything.

( _Confess to Lance?_ his mind suggests)

Anything but that.

Keith wriggles out of the sleeping bag and shakes Lance’s shoulder. Lance grumbles, “Ten more minutes,” and rolls over. Keith shakes his shoulder harder.

“Lance,” Keith says, and his stomach twists as he remembers the dream he’d had. “Wake up.”

“Nooo,” Lance whines, sticking out his hands and waving them aimlessly. He presses his hand to Keith’s face. Keith’s eyes widen, and Lance’s hand is warm and sends tingles where it touches, and he doesn’t draw his hand back. “I don’t wanna wake up.”

Keith finally grows coherent of the situation and pulls Lance’s hand off of his face. “Get up,” he says, trying to hold back a laugh.

Lance finally blinks open his eyes, yawning loudly. He wipes the drool from his lower lip and sits up, looks at Keith, who is sitting back on his heels, trying not to laugh at Lance’s bedhead and tired eyes. “Ugh,” Lance mutters. “My mouth tastes like something died inside it.”

“Brush your teeth,” Keith suggests.

“Thank you, Sherlock,” Lance says, dryly, clambering out of his sleeping bag and beginning to roll it up. The tent is still cool with the flowing oxygen, and Lance presses the button to stop it as Keith secures his helmet on his head. They leave the tent, helmets awkward on their heads and pajamas rumpled.

The white dwarf sun is just beginning to rise. Keith stifles another yawn as he trudges up the ramp to the black lion, where Shiro and Krolia already sit. He grabs his clothes and heads into the bathroom. His bedhead is probably horrendous.

His bedhead is indeed horrendous. Half of his hair sticks up on one side, and his ears perk to the other. He runs a brush through it—it’s still wavy from being in the braid all yesterday—and rubs at his tired eyes as he brushes his teeth.

He exits the bathroom, feeling slightly more awake. It’s seven in the morning Earth time, and Keith plops down in Black’s piloting chair, still not fully awake.

 _You tired,_ Black says, sounding amused. _Why?_

 _I’m not a magical sentient lion,_ Keith thinks at her grumpily. _I’m tired. It’s early._

 _Need to train,_ Black says, still sounding amused, although not unkindly. _You get moving and feel better._

 _Advice noted,_ Keith says. The dull ache in his muscles is slowly returning, though not nearly as bad as it was yesterday. _I’m just gonna fly right now. I’m trying to wake up._

 _Talk to others,_ Black advises. Keith clutches at her controls and she zooms upward. He executes several loops, the thrill of flying making its way into his veins. He evens her out and programs in coordinates to Olkarion—they’re going to meet up with Matt and discuss with the Voltron Coalition—then slumps back in the chair.

Krolia, as it turns out, is doing a crossword on her tablet. “Fiery rebirth!” she shouts, from the back of Black. “Seven letters!”

“Phoenix!” Keith yells back.

Krolia whoops her thanks and—Keith thinks—goes back to her crossword.

Keith decides to take Black’s advice. He pulls up the screen, finger hovering over the _call_ button as he tries to steel himself. Finally, he puffs out a breath and smacks the button, watching the dots flash across the screen as it rings.

( _Don’t pick up, don’t pick up, don’t pick up_ , one side of his mind prays)

( _Pick up, pick up, pick up,_ the other side of his mind chants loudly)

Lance picks up. His face fills the comm screen, and he blinks at Keith. “Oh, hey, Keith. What is it?”

“I just wanted to talk to you,” Keith admits, then curses himself for sounding so—so— _soft_. He can feel his face reddening, so he decides to focus on a single freckle on Lance’s chin. There’s nothing cute about a freckle. Right?

Keith doesn’t think so. He focuses on the freckles as Lance says, “Oh, okay. I just thought maybe you’d hit the wrong link.”

Keith blinks, darts his gaze up to Lance’s face. “Why?” he blurts, puzzled.

Lance’s gaze moves downward. “Nothing,” he mutters, then changes the subject. “What have you been doing?”

“Unscramble!” shouts Krolia. “Braze! B-R-A-Z-E!”

Keith bites his lip, thinking. “Zebra!” he yells back, then turns to Lance, who looks amused. “Krolia’s doing a crossword,” Keith explains.

“That explains it,” Lance says, grinning. Keith curses his heart for being so weak.

“What have _you_ been doing?” Keith asks, staring behind Lance. He can’t see anything, or anyone, for that matter, so he assumes Lance is alone.

Lance tilts his head and purses his lips, looking like he’s thinking. “Um, I was just stargazing? Allura told me there was gonna be, like, a red supergiant we would pass by, and I _really_ want to see it. It’s gonna be awesome!”

Keith grins. He loves—no, likes, just likes—seeing Lance like this, bright and excited and beaming. “That’s awesome. When will we come by it?”

Lance pouts, thinking. “I see a star in the distance a little bigger than the others, but it’s not gonna come for a while. Allura said it was, like, an—what did she say?—iyuud in diameter, and when I asked her about it, I think it rounds to, like, thirty astronomical units!”

“Wow,” Keith says. “That’s huge.”

“Yeah!” Lance says excitedly. One of the space mice scamper up his shoulder.

“Hi, um… Platt?” Keith peers at the mouse on Lance’s shoulder, who seems to be sneering at him, turning up its mouse nose.

Lance gasps in mock-offense. “Keith! How dare you? This is _Plachu!_ ”

Keith blinks. “Um. Sorry?” he offers to the mouse, who gives a mouse huff and turns, jumping off Lance’s shoulder to wherever the rest of the space mice are probably gathered.

“Keith!” Lance crows. “You heathen!”

Keith holds his hands up in a placating gesture. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry! I was gone for two years, remember?”

“You remembered all of us!” Lance protests sullenly, though there’s a hint of laughter in his voice.

“You guys are human! And I interact regularly with you!”

Lance huffs. “Have it your way, _Keith._ I’m abandoning you now to comfort _poor Plachu._ ”

“Sorry,” Keith mumbles, trying not to laugh, as Lance presses the _end call_ button. His face flickers and disappears, and the blue dot that glowed as Keith talked with Lance dulls to its usual luminosity.

Keith pushes himself up from the pilot’s chair, quietly asking Black if he can sit in the back for a bit. Black nods in his head, and he walks over to where Krolia sits, engrossed in another crossword.

Keith sits down on another cot and then flops backward, spreading his arms and legs like a sea star. He rolls over and buries his face in a pillow. “I’m fucking _infatuated._ ”  
Krolia looks up; Keith can see, from the corner of his eye that’s not covered by the pillow, her sympathetic expression. “True. But you know it’s requited. Make a move.”

Keith groans into the pillow. “It’s not requited.”

Krolia makes a (very sarcastic) _mm-hmm_ noise, then there’s silence for a moment as a thinking expression overtakes her face. “You know, it took me a long time to tell your father,” she says conversationally.

Keith scrambles up so quickly he knocks his elbow on a cabinet in his haste. He swears, clutching his elbow, then says, “Really?”

Krolia nods. “I only met one other person at the time, aside from you, so it’s quite silly. It took me two years to tell him how I really felt.”

Keith eyes are widen, his attention rapt. He listens to every word Krolia says. “What—what was he like?” Keith asks softly.

Krolia’s face softens, her lips curving up into a smile. “He was—quite like Lance.” She waggles her eyebrows at him, which Keith pointedly ignores. “He made a lot of jokes, and he was always lighthearted, even when he was hurting. Though he wasn’t much of a flirt. The first time he tried a pickup line on me, he ended up tripping over his own feet and giving himself a black eye.”

Keith snorts, then imagines Lance doing such a thing. His face rapidly reddens. “Continue,” he prompts Krolia, hoping she doesn’t know what’s going on in his head.

Krolia takes mercy on him and keeps talking. “He was always kind of an anchor. When I went out and tried to do stupid things—which was often” —Keith tries to keep a straight face— “he would help me think through my actions.”

Keith nods absentmindedly. He’d had hardly any issues with his temper up until his dad had died, and suddenly that strong, warm presence in his life was gone.

Krolia keeps talking, telling Keith all about her time with his father in that tiny shack in the desert. His father had been an introvert, but he was incredibly brave. Keith remembers his father reading in between shifts at the fire station, being amazed when his dad let his try on his helmet.

It’s a wistful, but not sad, memory. Keith loved his dad, and loves him now, but he’s long since gotten over his death. He remembers that day in graphic detail—waiting at school for hours when normally his dad would have long since picked him up, reading his book, swinging his legs aimlessly.

The fire truck squealing into the parking lot, and meeting with these men and women who Keith knew, and him not understanding. What did they mean by “lost”? And then the truck had struck Keith like a lightning bolt. Gone. Lost. Dead.

All they had to give him was a charred fire helmet and a promise: they would not give up on him. They would find him a nice home with a nice family and a nice dog, and he would be fine. They would watch over him when his father wasn’t able to.

Keith trusted them then, but he didn’t trust them the day he ran for the first time. He didn’t trust them when he ran and ran, but the orphanage just plucked him back up and sent him back. Over and over, until he’d met Shiro.

And then everything had fallen apart.

Keith blinks back into reality as Krolia falters. “Are you okay?” she asks Keith, looking concerned. “You looked sad.”

Keith tries to smile, then remembers his new teeth—which he’s still not comfortable baring—so he settles for a neutral expression. “I’m fine. Just remembering Dad.”

“He was a good man,” Krolia says. She sends a proud look toward Keith. “Just like you.”

Keith isn’t sure what’s happening, just that he’s—lurching—upward and sitting next to Krolia on the cot, throwing his arms around her. She looks surprised, but puts her arms around Keith too, squeezing tightly. It’s not the best—neither of them are very good at hugs—but it’s enough.

“Thanks, Mom,” Keith mutters, squeezing her tighter.

He’s not sure what prompted the name, or the hug. Maybe it was talking about Dad, or maybe it was the pride in her voice when she said _just like you_ , or maybe Keith was just feeling touchy today. Either way, he hugs her and smiles, smiles as Krolia smiles—as his _mom_ smiles.

He’s not sure what moms are supposed to be like. Probably not soldierly and tall and unable to cook things for their lives. But he loves his anyway.

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Lance’s mouth is open as he stares at the red supergiant.

Sure, he’d known it was gonna be huge. It was kind of in the name— _super giant_. But he’s still in awe as he sees it from what must be an astronomical unit away. It takes up a good half of his vision.

It’s red—obviously—and beautiful, flickering with sunspots. He knows it’s one of the coolest—in temperature and otherwise—stars. He knows a lot about stars, actually, because they’d taken a course in the Garrison and Lance had been inspired to learn even more.

“Look, buddy,” Lance says aloud to Red. “It’s your color.”

 _Our color,_ Red says. _Nice color._ She sounds smug.

The mice are gathered on Lance’s shoulders and head, staring out the windshield of the red lion. They all seem to be in awe of the sight before them. Lance has half a mind to call Keith, but he dismisses that idea as soon as it surfaces. He is most definitely not going to call Keith. He can barely function in front of him as it is.

He nearly buries his face in his hands at the memory of earlier that day. He’d literally called Keith a _heathen_. And Keith—Keith’s stupid face and Keith’s adorable bewildered expression and the tiny purple freckles on Keith’s nose—

“Ugh,” Lance says, and does bury his face in his hands. He’d ranted to the mice for five minutes straight after he’d hung up on him, uncaring of how they’d undoubtedly tell Allura what he’d said, word for word. He looks up, though, and grins again at the sight of the star.

He’s not sure how he feels being the red paladin. It’s strange, and unexpected, but he likes Red. He doesn’t feels as familiar as Blue did and does, but then, their bond isn’t yet as strong. Red bursts into his mind with a strength and familiarity that reminds Lance of Keith when he smiles.

He’s not sure what he’s going to do about Keith.

(He can’t help but notice things)

(Like the way the whites of his eyes are just slightly yellow)

(And how Keith stims with the hems of clothing, and with chewy stuff Pidge made for herself but decided she didn’t like)

(And the tiny purple freckles that dot his nose like stars dot the wide expanse of space)

(And the way he smirks when he’s excited and smiles when he’s grateful, and the way he moves fluidly when he fights, like the sword is an extension of his arm, and, and—)

(And Lance knows, deep down, that Keith is not for him, never for him, and Keith will probably stand still as Lance tells his how he truly feels, and Keith will hesitate for a moment before saying, _I’m sorry, Lance, but I don’t feel that way about you_ )

(But Lance can dream, Lance can hope, and the hope burns in his chest like the red lion burns in his mind—)

(Bright and beautiful)

Lance sucks in a deep breath and rubs his fingers along Chuchule’s soft head, lets it out in a long sigh. “I don’t know why I like him,” Lance admits earnestly to the mice.

 _Maybe if you two stop dancing around each other then we get something done,_ Red says, a hint of amusement at the edge of her voice.

“ _Red_ ,” Lance whines. “This is a serious matter.”

Red sighs in his mind. _Giving you silent treatment until you talk to him._

 _Then why are you still talking to me?_ Lance asks her. The mice peer curiously up at him, then back at the star, looking transfixed by its beauty.

 _Have to tell you about silent treatment. Stop talking now._ Red disappears from his mind, all at once, and Lance laughs quietly.

(And every day, he think about the letter in the drawer, and he wonders)

(Wonders and wonders and wonders)

(Wonders about the _if_ and the _how_ and the _why_ of when—and if—he’s going to tell Keith, tell him and be prepared for rejection, because Lance has been rejected so many times)

(But this is not puppy love, and Lance feels like he would shatter if Keith said _no_ , said _I don’t love you, Lance_ , despite the fact that Lance _knows_ he will, knows Keith will avoid his gaze and fidget in place and play with the hem of his jacket)

(Every day, Lance tells himself he will do it today, and every night, Lance tells himself he will do it tomorrow—)

(But the letter stays in the drawer, and Lance’s feelings stay snared in his chest, tightening with every smile Keith sends his way)

(Both in places Keith will never find, unreachable, untouchable)

(Keith will never find the letter, and Lance comforts himself with this fact, knows his inner feelings will never be revealed before he’s ready)

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Keith finds it. Finds both, actually.

It happens a while after they’ve left the red supergiant. Lance calls him, and asks him if he’d like to come to the red lion to hang out for a while, because apparently Red is still biased toward Keith and refuses to talk to Lance until he talks to Keith.

Lance’s words, not Keith’s.

Keith agrees, checks with Black ( _Take your time,_ she says smugly, and Keith can _hear_ the smirk in her voice), then teleports with Cosmo over to the red lion.

He accidently appears on top of Lance’s seat and crashes backward, tumbling into Lance’s lap and then off the seat, onto the floor, with a shouted curse.

Lance peers at him, grinning, from the seat. “Nice appearance, Samurai. I thought you were supposed to be all, like, ninja-ish?”

Keith groans and sits up. “Blame the wolf.”

Cosmo walks around and puts his head in Lance’s lap, blinking innocently at him. Lance scratches behind his ears and says, “How could you blame this cutie pie for anything?”

Keith agrees with him on that point, though he’ll never admit it. He just grumbles something unintelligible and pushes himself upright. “Where’re the mice?”

“They went with Allura. It was really cool, actually,” Lance says excitedly. “I just dropped them through the hatch and Allura caught them through her hatch and they weren’t even scared. Apparently they did it with the old paladins. Allura told me they told her I remind her of Blaytz.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. “The original blue paladin?”

Lance nods. “Yeah. Wait.” Lance’s nose wrinkles. “Does that mean you’re Alfor?” His eyes widen. “Or Zarkon.”

Keith frowns. “I don’t like those options.”

“I have to agree with you, buddy,” Lance says. “The dude who killed most of the universe or the dead dad of one of your best friends? Those aren’t great options.”

“One of your options is Alfor too,” Keith reminds Lance. He’s still sitting on the floor, staring up at Lance, who’s cross-legged in the pilot’s chair.

Lance grins. “Yeah! Awesome warrior or awesome warrior who flirted with Galra.”

Keith gives him a deadpan look. “You are not flirting with me. Pick Alfor.” He tries not to let his cheeks color.

Lance sputters. “What—I— _Keith!_ You’re right, I should pick Alfor.” He changes the subject. “Hey, I’ve got some snacks in the back. You want something?”

Keith doesn’t, but he agrees anyway. Lance can talk and eat, which has been proven on multiple occasions—most of which have been as Keith grimaces at Lance’s half-chewed mouthful of food (goo).

He rummages through the cupboard in the back of the red lion—Lance had told him he keeps Olkari granola bars in here, though Keith doesn’t see any. Lance is cross-legged on the floor, watching him.

Suddenly, Lance yelps as Cosmo bounds onto him. Cosmo licks his face enthusiastically as Lance protests. Keith watches, smiling, then turns back toward the (empty) cupboard.

Keith gives up on his quest for snacks for a moment, sitting back on his heels. He spots a tiny button—barely noticeable, barely large enough to be pressed by his thumb. Keith pokes at it curiously and watches as a drawer slides out from a nearly invisible area.

Lance isn’t paying attention—he’s caught up playing with Cosmo—so, against Keith’s better judgement, he peers into the drawer.

There’s nothing in it. Nothing but a folded piece of paper, pencil marks showing through the thin alien material. Keith reaches in and slips it out, biting his lip in concentration. He unfolds it.

 _Hey Samurai_.

Keith isn’t sure why the letter is addressed to him, but he smiles at the nickname, feels the smile falter at the swell of feelings in his chest. He loves Lance so much it hurts, sometimes, so much it feels like it’s going to burst out of him and engulf him like a hurricane. He keeps reading, only dimly aware of Cosmo’s wolf grumbles as Lance rubs his belly.

_So lately, I’ve been having a bisexual crisis. You caused it. I don’t forgive you but it’s okay because I kind of have a huge fucking crush on you._

Keith freezes, his heart in his throat. The noises from behind him freeze, too, but Keith barely notices, pressing on to read the rest of the letter.

_I don’t actually think it’s a crush. It was a crush a long time ago, way before you left for the Blade, but now it’s more than that. I get this weird fucking tangle of feelings in my chest every time I see you and it’s nice but also weird? Because I’ve never felt that way about anyone before. And definitely not a boy. Or an alien._

Keith blinks rapidly, confused by both the letter and the growing tangle in his chest, but he keeps reading.

_So now it’s love. That’s it. Keith, Mullet, Samurai, I’m in love with you. It’s really stupid actually. Of all people, I fell in love with the half-Galra hothead swordsman former-Marmorite. Love is weird._

“STOP!”

Lance appears out of nowhere, snatching the letter out of Keith’s hands. His voice is shaking slightly as he crumples the paper into a ball, eyes wide. “Why would you read that—”

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Keith stutters, but he’s drowned out by Lance’s increasingly panicked yelling.

“Just burst through people’s privacy like that—”

“I’m really sorry, Lance, but did you—did you mean it—”

“Probably think I’m some kind of weirdo now, I bet you don’t even feel the same way, ugh, I’m so fucking _stupid_ —”

Keith grabs at Lance’s arms, holds them in his hands to make Lance stop moving. Lance is shaking slightly, the telltale shine of tears in his eyes. “ _Lance,_ ” Keith says, softly, loudly. “Did you mean it?”

“Mean—of _course_ I meant it, dumbass, why would I have reacted like that if I didn’t—” Lance leans back, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. His wrists are still clenched by Keith’s hands. Keith tries to loosen his grip, feels the tangle loosen in his chest. Lance feels the same way, Keith hasn’t been imagining it, all this time—

But right now, Lance is crying, quietly and desperately, and he needs all of Keith’s attention.

Keith doesn’t know what to do, but then he’s acting, surging forward and throwing his arms around Lance. He shuts his eyes tight, but some tears squeeze their way out nonetheless. “I love—love—you too—Sharpshooter,” he mumbles against Lance’s neck, where he’s tucked comfortably. The words are hard to force out, but Keith manages.

Lance’s tears make their way into his hair. “You—” His voice shudders. “You—you what—why—why do you—”

Keith draws back and decides _fuck it._ He reaches a hand up and brushes the tears from Lance’s eyes, thumb lingering on his cheekbone. “ _Yes,_ ” Keith says, emphatically. “I—I love—you,” he grits out awkwardly, face bright red. It’s difficult saying it, more real, but Keith _knows_ , knows he loves this boy and is loved in turn, and he wants to say it. He intends to practice.

Lance laughs, mingling with a sob. “Why?” he asks, and his voice sounds so—broken—shattered like Lance should never sound. Keith hugs him again, tucking his face into the curve of Lance’s neck.

“Because,” he says. “You’re strong, and smart, and—and you’re _you._ You’re Lance. You keep the team together. We wouldn’t be half as connected without you.”

Lance gives a shuddering laugh. “I’ve always wanted to be the glue of friendship.”

“It’s a good position,” Keith reassures him. He draws back and looks at Lance—takes in the tear tracks down his face, the sparkling brown eyes, the soft smile he gets when he looks at Keith. “Can I read the rest of the letter?” Keith asks, softly, his voice nothing more than a wisp of wind.

Lance hands him the crumpled ball. Keith smoothes it out and stares at the writing.

_Keith, I really, really love you. I’m not really sure how to deal with it, which is why I’m writing it down now, so that I can deal with this huge stupid jumble of feelings. Feelings suck. I think you’ll agree._

_Love (I hope),_

_Lance_

Keith isn’t quite sure what he’s doing, but suddenly he’s moving forward, hands on Lance’s shoulders. He—he slows—he slows just as he reaches Lance. It’s soft and almost in slow motion as Keith presses his lips to Lance’s. It’s not perfect—their noses are squashed together, and Lance’s face is wet with tears, and Keith’s will be soon, but it’s enough.

Lance’s hands comes up to tangle in Keith’s hair. He gives a little sigh, and Keith relaxes, hands loosening on Lance’s shoulders. He draws back, but only far enough to leans his forehead against Lance’s. “Feelings suck,” Keith agrees.

Lance gives a wet chuckle. “Yeah.”

Keith kisses him again. It’s strange, and new, but the tangle in his chest finally loosens and completely dissolves. Something warm and then hot melts in the pit of his stomach. He’s never kissed anyone before, but he thinks it should be like this—should be enough to make you feel warm and make your toes curl and feel like all your problems have suddenly vanished into thin air.

Keith draws back, burying his face in Lance’s shoulder, his arms snaking around him. “I love—you,” he murmurs. “Don’t forget it like you forgot the bonding moment.”

“I won’t,” Lance reassures him. There’s a pressure at Keith’s side, a wet nose, and Cosmo wriggles his way in between them, licking experimentally at the tears on both their faces. Lance laughs and loses his balance, dragging Keith with him, until Keith’s awkwardly sprawled over Lance, Cosmo sitting proudly on top of them both.

“ _Cosmo,_ ” Lance whines. “I’m trying to have quality time with my—” He falters.

“Boyfriend?” Keith says softly.

Lance reddens and nods.

“That’s—okay,” Keith says, cursing his own face for reddening. “Boyfriend is—okay.”

(It’s strange to say, but strange like the alien food is strange, like piloting Black is strange—exciting, and new, and wonderful)

Lance shoves weakly at Cosmo. “Cosmo, I regret adopting you.”

“ _I_ adopted him,” Keith replies, mock-indignantly.

“I’m dating you, so by extension he’s my family,” Lance says, and Keith stomach plummets for—he thinks—probably the hundredth time that day. Lance keeps saying stupid romantic _things_ and he doesn’t even seem to realize the effect it has on Keith. Keith thought Lance was oblivious, but _honestly_.

“Ugh,” Keith groans. “Stop saying romantic things. I’m going to explode.”

“I would not want that,” Lance agrees, helping him to sit up. They’re forced to tell Cosmo to teleport into the pilot’s seat—Keith hopes Red forgives him later—in order to get up. Keith is starting to feel prickly from so much physical contact.

 _Good job,_ Red says, her voice smug. _You two finally stop dancing around each other._

Lance’s face is as red as the outside of his lion. “ _Red,_ ” he whines, so apparently Red had said it to both of them.

Keith has an idea and goes into the washroom. He takes a washcloth and wets it, then tromps out, handing it to Lance. “Your eyes are swollen,” he says, when Lance looks confused.

Lance nods and rubs his eyes with the washcloth. Keith rubs Cosmo’s head, where he’s made himself comfortable in the pilot’s chair.

Lance is staring at him—softly and warmly and the way that would have made former Keith, the Keith who didn’t know the extent of his feelings, think he was sick. “Can I kiss you?” Lance asks softly, gently, barely a murmur.

Keith blinks and feels his face reddening. “Yes,” he blurts, casting his gaze to the ground and cursing the way he blushes so easily.

Lance nods and cups Keith’s face, warm hands spreading tingles wherever they touch. It’s soft, barely a press of lips before Lance is drawing away, left hand still cupping Keith’s cheek. He brushes his thumb over his Galra mark. “You have—freckles,” Lance says. “There, and there, and there—oh my god, they’re _purple_.”

Lance is poking each freckle he finds, counting out loud. His gaze is focused, brown eyes sparkling with concentration. Each light jab from Lance’s index finger sends a jolt through Keith, and he has to remind himself to stay still.

Lance seems to notice, because he falters, finger lingering on the bridge of Keith’s nose. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “I’m just—a lot of touching.”

Lance nods. “Just tell me if something is too much, okay?” he asks, looking so softly concerned that Keith is forced to fight down a swell of love for how considerate he’s being. Lance pulls his hand off his face and playfully tosses the wet washcloth at him

It hits Keith smack in the face. He sputters, the cloth dripping water down his shirt, and pulls it off his face to send Lance an indignant look. “ _Lance._ ”

Lance gives him an innocent look. “What?”

Keith grumbles something unintelligible as he wipes his face with the cloth. It’s cool and soothing against his skin, though he does cuss Lance out _slightly_. Only slightly.

Lance grins. He’s beaming, actually, and Keith feels warm and content and settled. Lance glows like the sun and the moon all at once, bright and silvery. Keith isn’t sure what to do with the feelings that surge up in his chest, but they’re comforting. The tangle in his chest has completely unraveled by now, leaving lines that point to one thing.

Lance.

Red surges into his mind happily. _You stop dancing around each other,_ she says, sounding delighted.

“Red!” Keith blurts. “We didn’t dance around each other for _that_ long!” Lance’s face is red, so he’s pretty sure he can hear Red’s words as well.

 _Three years is long time,_ Red points out, sounding amused.

“Uuuggghhh,” Keith groans, drawing out the single syllable. “Just be happy for me.”

Lance looks curious. “When did you start liking me?” he asks. “Red makes it out to be a long time.”

Keith’s face reddens. “It was a long time,” he mutters, staring at the floor and not Lance’s cute, owlish, adorable face. “Since the bonding moment. Which you _forgot_.”

Lance looks sheepish.

Keith gasps dramatically. “You piece of _shit_.” He pokes at his chest with a finger. This kind of bickering should be unkind, cold, but it’s just—comfortable—entirely normal, because Lance knows that Keith is kidding.

“I panicked, okay?” Lance exclaims, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m a disaster bi, what did you expect?”

“You to _own_ your feelings,” Keith mutters, though he’s smiling.

“No,” Lance declares. “I will not _own_ my feelings. I will _eat_ my feelings. They will be devoured like my Mamá’s sugar cookies.”

“Mm-hmmm,” Keith says. His voice sounds amused. Lance’s face is bright when he says this, bright and beaming and excited. As he chatters on about his mother’s cooking and his father’s hugs and playful wrestling with his siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews.

(“It was kinda boring, though, with my younger family members, ‘cause I had to let them win,” Lance says thoughtfully)

(“Why did you have to let them win?” Keith asks)

(Lance mock-gasps. “Keith! They’re younger than you! You _have_ to let them win. It’s part of the Older Family Member code!”)

After a while, Keith sits up and stands, stretching his limbs. “I’ve got to head back to Black,” he says, trying to ignore the surge of regret in his chest and Lance’s awful attempt at a poker face.

Lance nods. “Okay,” he says, and he sounds so fucking—regretful—and Keith knows it’s irrational but he’s suddenly overtaken by a desire to kiss him again, to do anything to lift the frown from his face. Keith settles for cupping his face with his hands and pressing an awkward kiss to the one dimple on Lance’s right cheek, then the corner of his mouth, then his nose—

It’s strange, but Lance is smiling now, bright and full-bodied like he should always look. He laughs. “Bye, Mullet,” Lance says, holding up one hand in a wave as Keith places his hand on Cosmo’s fur and disappears in a flash of silver light.

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Keith appears, still wide-eyed, as Krolia gives him a critical look.

“You have tear tracks on your face,” she notes. “Did someone make you cry?”

Keith doesn’t want to say yes, because he knows she won’t hesitate to kick someone’s ass, but he also doesn’t want to say no, because that would technically be lying. “Kind of,” he says, having come to an ultimatum. “It was my fault.”

Krolia gives him a squinty glance and then changes the subject. Her _I-think-I’m-being-subtle-but-I’m-really-not-voice_ is full of amusement. “So,” she says, stretching out the syllable. “How was _Lance?_ ”

Keith flops down on a cot. “It happened,” he says, feeling his face color. _It happened_ , seriously? He could literally not be more vague about the occurrences in the red lion.

Krolia yells and pumps her fists in the air as Keith sprawls on his back like a starfish. “Yes!” she yells. Keith watches her upside down as she does some sort of weird victory dance only moving her arms. “Finally!”

Keith rolls his eyes, but he laughs. The inside of Black is purple-tinted, and only Krolia and Cosmo are inside. Krolia is rapidly approaching now. She slows and leans down to brush his bangs from his forehead and press a kiss to his temple.

Then she resumes her strange victory dance. “My son has a boyfriend!”

Keith groans and rolls over, shoving his face into the pillow. There’s the strange noise of Cosmo disappearing, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Mom,” he groans. “You are the _worst_.”

When he looks up at her, her face is surprised, eyes wide and mouth open. Keith frowns. “Wait, did I say something wrong?” he asks. Then he remembers. “Oh,” Keith says aloud, face rapidly reddening. “Is it—is the name okay?”

Krolia sits down on the cot and presses another kiss to his forehead. “It’s fine,” she says. She sounds, strangely, like she might cry. “It’s wonderful, actually.”

There’s another weird space _pop_ as Cosmo reappears, this time with Shiro. Shiro freezes in the back of Black, looking awkward. “Um,” he says. “Am I interrupting a family moment?”

Keith shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Mom’s just freaking out because I kissed Lance.”

This has the desired effect on Shiro: he yells excitedly and then tackles Keith in a hug. “Finally! My little bro is no longer inept at romance!”

Keith groans in the hug. “Shiro,” he squeaks—his chest feels tight. “I think you’re going to crack my ribs.”

Shiro squeezes, if it’s possible, harder. Keith had not know it was possible to kill someone by hugging them too tight with _only one arm_. “I don’t care,” Shiro says. “You finally did it.”

“He did it, actually,” Keith says. He feels like he needs to point this out. “I just went along with it.”

“Okay, so you’re still inept at romance,” Shiro sums up. Keith makes an offended noise. “But don’t worry about it,” Shiro continues. “I’ll help you!”

Keith snorts. “Says the guy who confessed to his roommate at the _hospital_.”

Shiro draws back and shoves him lightly. “Hey, at least I had a fiance, which is more than you have.”

Keith gives him a skeptical look. “I’m twenty-one, Shiro. I don’t think I should have a fiance right now.”

“Three years,” Shiro sums up. “Then you pop the question, I’m best man, the mice are ring bearers, everyone is happy. Done!”

Keith gives him a deadpan stare. “Suuuuure,” he says dryly. “And I’m sure Kaltenecker will be the flower girl.”

“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Shiro muses, cupping his chin in a thinking gesture that Keith knows Shiro knows means _lesbian_ in sign language. He doesn’t mention what it means; he knows Shiro will launch into an awful joke that may or may not include puns.

Keith groans and flops backward. He shuts his eyes, remembering Lance’s tear-streaked face and Lance’s wet chuckles and Lance’s eyes, bright and brown and more beautiful than anything Keith has ever seen. His stomach still feels warm, strange but good with the absence of the tangle in his chest.

“I kissed Lance,” Keith whispers to himself, staring up at the ceiling of the black lion. “I actually kissed Lance.”

He feels the corners of his mouth peel back into a grin and hides his face with his hands as Shiro goes “Oooohhh,” jeering, with a shit-eating grin. Then, louder, “OOOOOOHHHHH.”

Keith shoves weakly at his face. “Let me have my revelation in peace,” he says.

Shiro dumps a pillow on his face. “Nah,” he says. “That’s no fun.”

⸻⸻⸻⸻

As soon as Keith had disappeared from the red lion, Lance had frantically fumbled his hands around until he’d hit the comms for the blue, green, and yellow lions through pure chance.

Allura, Pidge, and Hunk’s faces, along with Romelle and Coran, peered confusedly at him. Lance is flapping his hands, tapping his feet, staring at them. He blurts, “Keith kissed me!”

His face reddens as Allura and Romelle scream and hug each other, Pidge yells “Ah-HA!” like a damn investigator, and Hunk throws his hands in the air and grins.

“Finally!” Hunk beams at Lance. Then he frowns. “Your eyes are red.”

“Long story,” Lance says, waving a hand to indicate that it’s not something Hunk should worry about. “I just—uuuggghhh!” He throws his hands up in the air. “He was so fucking _pretty_ and I looked like a fucking _idiot_ and I think he’s my boyfriend now or something!”

Hunk grins. Pidge cackles. Allura hugs Romelle tighter, though Lance suspects it’s just an excuse for her to hug her and not because he just kissed Keith. Or Keith kissed him. He’s still reeling from what had happened—first of all, Keith had found the fucking letter, the one he’d specifically hidden so Keith would never find, and Keith had looked at him like _that_ , like he was surprised and amazed and confused all at the same time, and then Keith had grabbed his shoulders gently, so gently, and pressed his lips to his. On purpose.

Dear god, he’s pretty sure he’s dreaming. He pinches himself just to be sure and yelps—he’d pinched himself far too hard; he’s probably gonna have a bruise tomorrow. He rubs the crease of his elbow and grins despite himself. It’s real.

Hunk is smirking at him. “So,” he says, drawing out the single syllable. “Sooooo. Are you guys a thing now?”

Lance flushes and considers. Keith kissed him. And said that he loved him. Does that make him his boyfriend?

( _Yes,_ says a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Keith’s and very, very deadpan. _Yes, he is your boyfriend_ )

“I think so?” Lance says instead. That sounds better, less immediate; he doesn’t know what to think, because Keith isn’t here right now, and Lance wants to see what he thinks too. “Maybe. He headed back to Black.”

Pidge nods sagely. “The two most oblivious people on team Voltron finally got together, and it only took Keith almost dying and a love letter.”

Lance sputters, then sticks his tongue out. Allura snorts; she’s let go of Romelle by now and sat back in the pilot’s chair of Blue. “Wow, Lance,” she says. “Very mature. But congratulations.”

Lance sighs. “Thanks, guys,” he says. “I just—wanted to tell you.” He fidgets awkwardly, tapping his fingers on his jeans, and stares at the faces on the screen. They’re perfectly defined—the tech brings out every molecule of their faces, even enhances the colors, like they could jump out of the screen and into the red lion.

Hunk grins and gives him a thumbs-up. “You did well, Lance,” he says. “We’re proud that you finally embraced your bicon-ness.”

This time, it’s Lance’s time to nod sagely. “I did indeed,” he says, trying to sound old and regal. He just sounds like Shiro. Is Shiro old and regal? Lance frowns, wondering. Then he turns back to the screen and, in his normal voice, says, “Thanks, guys. Bye.”

“Bye,” Hunk says.

“Goodbye!” Allura and Romelle call in unison.

“ _Bi_ ,” Pidge says, with a smirk and waggling of her eyebrows. Lance fully understands the pun, even without the visual hints. He wrinkles his nose jokingly at Pidge and hits the _end call_ button, then—after some internal deliberating and the voices in his head screaming at him—dials the black lion.

It barely blinks once before Keith’s face is there, frowning confusedly at him. It’s a light frown, especially for Keith standards, and Lance smiles unconsciously at the sight of Keith. “Hey,” he says, then his face reddens, because it sounded so—soft—like it was coming from a person completely different from himself.

Soft, but Keith smiles, and replies, “Hey,” in the same tone, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear. Lance has the overwhelming urge to bury his face in his hands at how overwhelmingly _cute_ Keith looks, slightly bewildered and the corner of his mouth pulling up in a lopsided smile.

“Um—” Lance fidgets awkwardly. “I just wanted to, er, call. To talk about what—happened.”

Keith’s smile falters. He looks downward, and Lance can see his cheeks color. “About that. Yeah.” Keith clears his throat, then looks up, directly at Lance. His eyes are flecked with yellow and fiery and his lips are pressed into a thin line and his fingers tap on his knees awkwardly, fidgeting. “I’m sorry I read the letter,” Keith says.

Lance blinks. “What—” he begins, looking askance, then pauses. “Why?”

Keith is still fidgeting. He looks very focused on a certain button on the control panel. “It’s just—” he mumbles. “You didn’t want me to read it and I made you cry and then—”

“Oh, for goodness’s sake.” Shiro’s voice echoes from the back of the black lion. “Just kiss and make up, it’s obvious Lance doesn’t blame you.”

Lance freezes, then feels the blood rushing to his face. He ducks his head, throwing his hands up in exasperation. Keith buries his face in his hands. His (furry) ears are surprisingly red. “ _Shiro_ ,” he whines.

“What?” Shiro asks innocently.

“I will tell everyone about your secret love for Dear Evan Hansen,” Keith hisses, turning to face Shiro.

Lance raises a finger as Shiro’s sputtered protests. “Dear Evan Hansen _rocks_ ,” he protests. “But yes, Shiro, I agree with Keith.”

Keith makes a noise of objection. “Dear Evan Hansen is _terrible_ ,” he says.

Lance gasps, smacking a hand to his chest. “The plot is bad, yes, but the songs are good!”

From the black lion, Shiro’s voice filters through the speakers. He’s singing—badly, _really_ badly, off-key and wavering. “On the outside, always looking in—”

“Shiro,” Keith groans, flopping back, his head smacking against the pilot’s chair.

“WAAAAVING THROUGH A WIIIIINDOOOOOOOWWW—”

“I can’t believe you,” Lance says. Shiro stops singing as soon as Keith threatens him with something else—Lance doesn’t hear it, but the singing cuts off abruptly. To Keith, Lance says, “Um. Bye. Thanks, for—you know.” He waves his hand awkwardly, in an attempt to convey the words that won’t assemble right in his mind.

Keith blinks, then smiles again, that soft smile that makes Lance’s stomach jerk in the best possible way. “I should be thanking you,” he says quietly.

“Nah,” Lance says, one corner of his mouth pulling up in a lopsided grin. “That’s boring.” He pauses.

( _Should we say it?_ his mind asks, voice pressing and conflicting)

( _No,_ argues one of the voices in his head, _no, we shouldn’t, we don’t want to put him on the spot and it’s too soon for that and people are listening_ —)

( _But,_ the other voice begins, soft and pressing in unison, _we should, we should we should we should we want to we want to tell him_ )

Lance bites his lip, then, because he’s an idiot who has no impulse control, says, “I love you.”

Keith blinks. His face rapidly reddens, and then he looks down, that wrinkle between his eyebrows appearing, and oh shit _why did Lance have to say that_ —

“You don’t have to say it back,” Lance says hastily. Keith looks up, worrying at his bottom lip. “I just wanted to tell you.”

The smile is back now, but wider, a full grin rather than a soft, subdued smile. “Bye, Lance,” Keith says, quietly, like he doesn’t want to pierce the soft atmosphere.

Without saying another word, Lance moves his hand up to press the _end call_ button. He keeps his gaze trained on Keith, on Keith’s violet eyes, so visible through the advanced alien tech of the screens. Then he presses the button, and Keith’s image disappears, leaving only blackness.

Lance sighs contentedly, leaning back against the chair. He knows he’ll be subject to the jeers of his teammates and friends, but it’s nice, in a way; he’d already been being teased for his (ridiculously obvious) crush, but now he can be teased for his—his boyfriend. Keith.

It sends a warm feeling into the pit of his stomach. Lance feels the corner of his mouth tug up into a grin. He flops back in the pilot’s seat and throws his hands up. _I have a boyfriend, Red!_ he exclaims in his mind. _Aren’t you proud of me?_

 _No,_ Red rumbles. _Took you too long. Made you both sad to wait so both idiots._

“Oh, c’mon, Red,” Lance says aloud, feeling his grin grow, if it’s possible. His cheek muscles hurt. “I was very brave! You saw me! I confessed like a true champion.”

 _You not confess. Letter confess. Keith find letter. Good job Keith, bad job Lance,_ Red says, and Lance can _hear_ the smirk in his voice.

Lance wrinkles his nose at Red. “I’m shunning you. You have gotten yourself shunned, Red! Is that what you want?”

 _Wanted you to confess to Keith earlier, but guess that didn’t happen,_ Red says, and now Lance is positive Red is the lion version of his very teasing brother Luis. He’s suddenly awash in a wave of memories about Luis, but it doesn’t hurt like it used to; he’s going to see them soon, so soon that he can hardly wait.

“I’m not talking to you anymore,” Lance declares. “You’re far too mean.”

 _Eh,_ Red says, and then says nothing.

Lance sticks his tongue out, just to have the last word (gesture?). He knows he’s still going to have issues. Keith is still Galra, and that’s undoubtedly gonna cause some problems with the aliens they rescue. They still have a good two phoebs until they get to Earth—nearly two Earth months. And they don’t know what state Earth will be in when they get there.

But they’ll make it. Lance and Keith will make it. They’ll do whatever it takes, and they _will_ make it back to Earth.

Together.

 


End file.
